Building Charisma: The Post-Mortem Sanctity Attributed to the Prince of Viana (d. 1461)

Abstract

This article aims to address the issue of post mortem charisma from the case of Carlos de Viana, crown prince of the kingdom of Navarre (1421–1461). Although he did not have a reputation for sanctity in life, from the moment of his death, miracles attributed to his intercession transformed devotion to ‘san’ Carlos de Viana into a mass phenomenon. The alleged sanctity of the Prince of Viana was part of a complex political process in which agents of the different peninsular states were involved in the second half of the 15th century and which led to the opening of a canonization process that would never see the light of day. But, at the same time, it is a good example of the notion of the charismatic figure, the miracle being one of the clearest manifestations of charisma, and of how it is possible to ‘build’ a charism post mortem.

1. Introduction

Research on the sanctity as a historical phenomenon for the medieval period, beyond spiritual and theological questions, has been very successful since the 1970s, thanks to the work of historians such as André Vauchez1. Since then, the subject has been constantly explored, in particular the close relationship between sanctity and princes of royal blood in the Middle Ages, among which the work of Gábor Klaniczay stands out (See: Klaniczay 1989). The canonization processes, in this sense, acquire great relevance and there has been no shortage of studies on the subject2. Recently, the question of “martyrdom” has also been raised, in which the religious and the political intermingle considerably in the medieval centuries (Billoré and Lecuppre 2019). However, with regard to “charisma” as a fundamental characteristic of holiness at this time in the Middle Ages, no serious study has been undertaken in the way it has recently been thanks to the colloquium organized in October 2022 at the University of Poitiers3.

2. Charles of Navarre, Prince of Viana

Charles of Navarre, Prince of Viana, born in 1421, was the only male son of the marriage between Blanche, Queen of Navarre, and the Castilian John of Trastamare, younger brother of the King of Aragon, Alfonso the Magnanimous4. From childhood, the prince was distinguished by his docile and affable character and his intellectual abilities. In 1439, the prince married the Burgundian Agnes of Cleves, a discreet marriage without descendants, which ended with the death of the princess in 1448 (Narbona Cárceles 2013).

In 1440 his mother, Queen Blanche, died, and a clause in her will left the kingdom of Navarre in a state of profound instability: the heir to the throne was still his son Charles, then aged 19, but he would not accede to the crown until his father deemed it appropriate (which never happened). From then on, although he was only the spouse of the deceased queen, King John II was to be the sole king of Navarre.

Very soon, John II’s form of government, a precedent for the authoritarianism of the Trastamare, which would grow and spread until it reached its peak at the time of his son, Ferdinand the Catholic, began to cause unease among the Navarrese people, who missed the traditional form of government of the Évreux, based on pactism. Moreover, they did not understand why the young heir, who was approaching thirty, did not become their sovereign. Thus, in 1451, a faction opposed to John II succeeded in convincing Charles de Viana to take up arms against his father: this was the beginning of the civil war in Navarre. In 1453, during a battle, the prince was taken prisoner and, two years later, upon his release, and faced with the reality of his father’s domination over most of the kingdom, he decided to go and seek the help of the King of France and the Pope, but his long journey was in vain: his father was already too powerful on the international scene.

In 1457, he took refuge in Naples, with his uncle Alfonso V, where he spent a long period enjoying the cultural atmosphere of the humanist court of the Magnanimous, which would mark his intellectual activity. A year later, after the death of the king, Charles returned to Catalonia, having exchanged letters and embassies with his father. There, a good part of the Catalans was dissatisfied with the new king. The abuses committed by John II had inflamed a large part of the population, who now saw the Prince of Viana as their heir and natural lord. Thus, on his arrival in Barcelona, Charles was welcomed by the crowd as the great hope of a whole people, which once again aroused the reservations of his father, who ordered the prince’s arrest and imprisonment (Raufast Chico 2008; Miranda Menacho 2011). In prison, the prince fell ill, and when he was released in the spring of 1461, his weakness was already evident. Despite this, he managed to take the oath as the king’s lieutenant in Catalonia, a role of such importance that the hopes of those who saw Charles as their future monarch seemed to be strengthened. However, the prince’s health deteriorated and he died on 23 September (J. Font Rius 1934; J. M. Font Rius 1936).

The death of the prince marked the beginning of a new period, which coincided with the Catalan civil war that took place between 1462 and 1472. During this decade, the presence of the Prince of Viana, although deceased, continued to fuel the fervor of the Vianist faction, for which he was the source of inspiration. Very soon a new ingredient appeared on the scene: the reputation for sanctity that he acquired from the moment of his death. His remains began to be venerated while his canonization was promoted, as we shall see later (Narbona Cárceles 2019).

The civil war ended in 1472 with the victory of John of Navarre. In spite of everything, the Joanist faction in Catalonia even managed to rally the main leaders of the Vianist faction, the most loyal to the prince and linked to him by blood ties, Juan de Beaumont and Juan de Híjar, in 1464. That same year, the prince’s body, still buried in Barcelona Cathedral, was transferred to the royal tomb in the Cistercian monastery of Poblet (Sans-i-Travé 2000). Perhaps in a maneuver by his father to eliminate the focus of popular devotion that the tomb of his son had become in the capital of the principality?

In those years, the hypothesis of the presumed murder of the prince by his wife, Queen Jeanne, who would have poisoned him so that her son Ferdinand could accede to the throne, gained strength. The responsibility of the Catholic king’s father is less and less evident, as are the legitimate claims of the Évreux to the throne of Navarre and Aragon. Some witnesses claimed to have seen the ghost Charles de Viana appear in the streets of Barcelona, crying out for revenge (Mahiques Climent 2001, 2014b).

The last stage in the evolution of this post mortem charisma began in 1515. In that year, the Pope is said to have asked the bishop of Tarragona, Pere Folch de Cardona, to investigate the miracles of Charles of Navarre in preparation for his canonization process5. The prince’s own bastard son, Juan of Aragon, bishop of Huesca, could have asked the pope to elevate their father to the altars, and he even instituted a solemn service in memory of his father every 23rd of September, the day of Saint Thecla (Del Arco Garay 1951; Elipe Soriano 2017). The matter was therefore dragging on while the Holy See decided whether or not the prince was a saint. This request came at a time when the Church was in the midst of reform, on the eve of Trent, and one of the main points to be reviewed was precisely the question of the consideration of sanctity. Finally, in 1542 an apostolic indult allowed the veneration of the body, and authorized monks to cut off an arm as a relic. From then on, popular devotion to the Prince of Viana continued uninterrupted, as did miraculous cures at the relic of his arm. Biographies were written, such as that of fray Joan de Valldespinosa, in the 17th century, and that of the Dominican Francisco de Queralt, in 17066. As for this relic, it disappeared in 1909 during the events of the Tragic Week in Barcelona. In fact, the relic had been the subject of mockery in the press7.

As far as the personality of the prince is concerned, he seems to have been a calm, intelligent person, who became a good intellectual and rubbed shoulders with great humanists, his friends and interlocutors. He fell in love easily and in the last decade of his life he is known to have had three mistresses with whom he had three children whom he recognized. He had the reputation of a loyal person who won a good number of sincere friendships.

3. The Political Leader: Recognized Charisma and “Constructed” Charisma

Following the historiographical path of political charisma sketched by Jaume Aurell in a recent work (Aurell i Cardona 2022), the charismatic authority of the Prince of Viana is inscribed in several of the variants (acquired charisma, transmitted, etc.), and also adopts the sensorial dimension of ritualized charisma and charisma projected onto objects. Moreover, in the case of this character, we could speak of another perspective of charisma that I would describe as “constructed” or even, why not, “invented”.

On the one hand, destined from birth to occupy the throne, the charisma acquired, inherited from his ancestors, is undeniable. Here, the ritualized charisma takes on its full meaning in the few ceremonies in which he was able to manifest what could have been his authority as king, mainly during his entry into Barcelona in March 1460, the taking of the oath as the king’s lieutenant in Catalonia or even during his funeral. In these ceremonies, the sword played a special role, symbolizing the authority of the lieutenant, carried by the prince upstairs or placed on his funeral monument in Barcelona Cathedral8. In fact, his successor to the throne, Pedro of Portugal, kept the sword that had belonged to the prince as a talisman near him, which shows the charisma that rested on this object (Martínez Ferrando 1936).

However, a major part of the charisma of the Prince of Viana was the recognition of his friends and political supporters who not only recognized his inherited charisma, but also helped to build it, highlighting the qualities until he himself came to believe in its potential9: the rights he claimed were legitimate, his lineage was impeccable, his human virtues unquestionable and his Christian virtues sufficient, his physique was praised by all and his intellectual qualities caused admiration in the most demanding circles. He succeeded (probably unintentionally) in gathering around him a good number of supporters who saw in him a charismatic figure in every sense of the word. They encouraged him to rebel against his father in 1451, accompanied him on his campaigns, advised him and remained loyal to him, helped him in his captivity, offered him friendship and accompanied his misfortunes with their letters and poems, and exalted him even more at the time of his death. And many of them were imprisoned and even died for following him10.

In the last years of his life, spurred on by experience and aware of his responsibility, the prince began a stage of political maturity that would never see the light of day, but which made him the promise of the sovereign that many had been waiting for. After translating Aristotle’s Ethics into Castilian on the basis of Leonardo Bruni’s version, which was to be his best-known work, he also tried to take the conflict to diplomatic channels by means of a letter to the main Spanish sovereigns, inspired by the civic humanism of Aretin11. Thus, following the example shown by Jaume Aurell in his article, the charismatic leader became a ‘driver’ rather than a ‘magnet’ (Aurell i Cardona 2022, p. 623).

In a way, as the liberator and hope of a people who felt oppressed and despised by the rulers, Charles de Viana came to have a messianic halo12: he was the righteous one, the one who holds the truth, the legitimate heir, an upright and virtuous man13.

4. A Saint as a Leader in the Battle

Charles de Viana’s charisma as a political leader does not seem to be very different from others, if we take the Weberian conception of the term. But, at a time when the religious fact permeated all areas of life, in the collective mentality his virtues were mixed with something similar to sanctity, returning to the Pauline idea of the term. In fact, the process of ‘sanctification’ that took place around the person of the prince from the moment of his death, also affects the dimension of the political leader and vice versa, as we will see later, although Charles’ religiosity does not seem to have been particularly remarkable, apart from the devotion of the time.

Within days, Charles became a saint by popular acclaim. The appellations of ‘St. Charles’, ‘Blessed Charles’, ‘Beatus Karolus’, ‘Glorious’, etc., were used by the ecclesiastics, the notaries of the city of Barcelona and the poets and intellectual friends of the prince, and by the people in general. And when the Catalan civil war broke out a few months later, the head of one of the two conflicting factions was no longer alive, but the strength and courage that ‘St. Charles’ gave to his followers was a very powerful weapon: «nous voyons les catalans courir au combat: ‘ab lo crit de Mossenyor Sant Jordi e del benaventurat Karles’» (Calmette 1903, p. 74, n. 2), and ‘Oh Sant Carles ajudau!’14. It is also worth noting that of the two galleys of the Vianist faction, one was named ‘Saint Charles’15 (while the other was called ‘Saint Eulalia’, who is no more and no less than the early Christian martyr and patron saint of Barcelona). And some saw the prince flying over the battlefield to encourage their armies. Thus, the leader of the Vianist faction continued to be the Prince of Viana himself, in the form of ‘Saint Charles’, in a process of constructing a post mortem charism with entirely medieval characteristics. In short, as Marc Bloch stated in Les rois thaumaturges, speaking of the case of the Prince of Viana his supporters ‘qui avaient voulu faire de lui pendant sa vie le porte-drapeau del’indépendance catalane, cherchèrent, ne pouvant plus utiliser de lui que son souvenir, à en faire un saint’ (Bloch 1961, pp. 153–54).

5. The Holiness of the Prince of Viana and the Pauline Perspective of Charisma

But the charismatic personality of the prince can also be seen in the Paulinian perspective where the charism comes from the Holy Spirit and which should ultimately lead to holiness.

‘… per tant com lo glorios Carles de gloriosa recordacio, fill e primogenit del illustrissimo senyor rey are beneventuradament regnant, a XXIII de setembre prop passat paga lo deute de natura comanant la sua anima al sobira creador e redemptor nostre e per tot lo universal mont e signantment per lo principat de Catalunya, en la sua vida es stat molt comendat per les grans virtuts, per obra de Sperit Sant, en ell abundants e apres de la sua mort per innumerables miragles demostrats e tots jorns continuats’16.

6. Traits of Sanctity

First of all, there is the political role of Charles de Viana, which, according to the mentality of the time, was not unrelated to the action of the Holy Spirit, since the holiness of the prince was therefore also based on the charismatic action of good government. In this sense, a few months after his death, the prince’s former secretary, Fernando de Bolea, made public the letters that his master had sent to the main rulers of the Iberian crowns, containing the prince’s political thought, which was contrary to tyranny17.

But perhaps the most important manifestation of his holiness is the countless miraculous healings that took place from the moment of his death. On the day of his death and on the days that followed, his funeral chapel received crowds of people in a collective euphoria worthy of an anthropological study. The queue to enter the chapel had to be organized with one door in and one door out. And all kinds of healings took place. And one of the most frequent cures was for scrofula, which refers to his status as a thaumaturgist as a prince of royal blood, to his inherited charisma.

But, in addition to miracles, another charismatic trait to be highlighted in Charles of Evreux is the gift of forgiveness. Indeed, the ability to ask for forgiveness and to forgive is a gift of the Holy Spirit, and practically all the authors who wrote poems about the prince refer to this aspect: Joan Fogassot (n.d.), Guillem Gibert (n.d.), Joan Berenguer de Masdovelles (n.d.a, n.d.b), Pere Martines18, all of them refer to the forgiveness he granted his father on his deathbed (who, in turn, was accused, if not of murder, at least of neglecting his son’s health), or in a romance about Charles’s flight into exile because of his father called ‘Por los montesPerineos’ (Di Stefano 2020).

7. Saint by Popular Acclaim

However, despite all these elements in his favor, the first attempts at canonization were totally unsuccessful. As already mentioned, in the second half of the 15th century, the Holy See considerably reduced the number of canonizations by tightening the requirements for sainthood. And, in this case, it was a political cause, a character used by one of the factions that could not meet the need for universality of the saints.

But, on the other hand, of course there were detractors. The pontiff himself, Pius II, was a supporter of John II and went so far as to write down his personal opinion of the miracles of the Navarrese, in which he did not believe at all (Mahiques Climent 2014b, p. 28). One of the main leaders of the faction opposed to the king, Joan Agulló, was tortured and confessed, before dying, that the cures performed by the prince had been a montage with actors. And the Castilian chroniclers of the reign of John II and also of his son, Ferdinand the Catholic (Diego de Valera, Gonzalo de Santa María) insisted on this idea (J. M. Font Rius 1936, p. 222).

However, Saint Charles of Viana was a saint by popular acclaim. The Catalan people, although aware that it was a private and popular cult, venerated him in every possible way, encouraged by a good part of the ecclesiastics, who led this fervor for the prince.

8. Charisma Projected on Objects of Devotion to a Charismatic Character

On the material level, the cult of the saints brings us back to the question of the charisma of devotional objects. In this line, we should mention first of all, of course, the relics that were distributed after the prince’s body was stripped of its clothes for burial. The prior of the Order of St. John, one of the closest to Charles de Viana, was the first to take a piece of petticoat to keep as a relic19. All the objects from the chamber in which the prince’s burial chapel was located, including some bricks, were distributed as relics among the people. In the work of the monk of Poblet, Fr. Joan de Valldespinosa (1578–1640) recounted that in his time one of these relics could still be seen in the monastery of San Vicente Mártir in Valencia on which it was specified ‘de culcitra beati Caroli principis’ (‘from the bed of Blessed Prince Charles’)20.

But other types of devotional objects were also the repositories and transmitters of ‘St. Charles’ charisma. Only a month after the prince’s death, a prayer began to be recited, called ‘Oratio beatiKaroli’, which is said to have been the prince’s, in which he prayed for his enemies21. The prayer already appeared on the portrait of the prince made for his funeral in Valencia Cathedral and was recited in the funeral sermon22. It also appears in a book of the cathedral of Vich, of which Cosme de Montserrat was bishop at the time. Prints were also made for the occasion, a remarkable case because it is the first xylographic print preserved in Spain. It showed the prince curing a young girl of scrofula, with the halo of holiness, the words ‘Beatus Karolus’, and a phylactery with his motto ‘Qui sehumiliat’; on the back was the prayer (Carderera y Solano 1865; Pedraza Gracia 2012). Years later, the print was reworked by the artist Juan de Juanes.

But the representation of Saint Charles did not remain only in prints for private devotion. According to the sources, throughout Catalonia, the prince was venerated in a multitude of chapels and altarpieces. The first recorded devotional representation is the one painted in Valencia Cathedral just after the funeral23.

There were also chapels with altarpieces dedicated to the new saint, such as the one in the church of Tarrega where in June 1462 the Vianist soldiers performed a miracle. According to the account: ‘In the main church, in a chapel of Saint Charles, the men-at-arms went to pray. And they said “Charles, Charles” several times. At that moment, the image of St. Charles raised its painted sword, the whole altarpiece moved and a wooden image of an angel bowed before it, and the Virgin moved, and a [very heavy] candlestick all moved. The men fell to the ground and could not get up’24.

The number of artistic representations in honor of Charles de Viana must have been quite large, according to the letter of 1466 in which King John II denounced to the Pope the existence of altarpieces and chapels in his honor without authorization: ‘trying to canonize the memory of Prince Charles and that he be placed among the saints and adoring and venerating his tomb and images by having in their churches and houses altarpieces with false stories of miracles of the prince as if he were canonized’25. Others were more cautious, such as the Count of Cifuentes, who until 1462 and 1464 stipulated in his will that if the prince was finally canonized he should be made an altarpiece, but not before (Carreras y Candi 1907, p. 3). Unfortunately, as far as we know, none of these altarpieces dedicated to Saint Charles de Viana have been preserved, probably due to the action of the Council of Trent. Or perhaps many of them have been converted or reused. I think we could continue to include here the famous altarpiece of Saint George and the Princess’, one of the masterpieces of Aragonese Gothic painting, which, according to the opinion of Émile Bertaux at the end of the 19th century, could be a portrait of the Prince of Viana himself. Now the question has not ceased to interest historians, which would confirm the fact that it could indeed be Charles de Viana.

9. Conclusions: The Hybrid and the Constructed Charisma

Twenty years after the death of the prince, his former secretary, Fernando de Bolea, published a book containing the letters sent by the prince to the Iberian sovereigns. On the first page of the volume appears the most famous image of the prince, in which all the dimensions of his charismatic personality are shown. The iconography is inspired by that of the print distributed at his death, but the young girl has disappeared, and Charles is represented, surrounded by his mottos, leaning on his sword, reflecting his natural political authority. The lamentation ‘las!’ (derived from the lace, the ‘las’), according to the evangelical lamentation (Narbona Cárceles 2011, pp. 366–67), can be considered as a lamentation for himself, but also for the Catalan people. At the same time as expressing this political charisma, the nimbus that surrounds it reflects that other charismatic dimension more closely linked to the Pauline tradition, which leads to holiness.

In short, a case of a late medieval ruler in which leadership and sanctity are mixed at the same time, the two manifestations of late medieval political charisma that, according to Jaume Aurell, offer a hybrid charisma that is neither purely Pauline nor absolutely Weberian. On the other hand, the figure of the Prince of Viana, before and after his death, offers us another vision that goes beyond the facets of political charisma established by Weber and that could be seen as ‘constructed’ charisma.