I

Medieval rulers did not have the capacity to produce and circulate propaganda on a modern scale, nor could they benefit from the scientific analysis of psychology and sociology as a guide for such activities. Yet they were well aware of the basic means, such as the manipulation of words and images, symbols and public ceremony, of influencing the thoughts and actions of their subjects. Indeed, during the Hundred Years War, the French and English governments made every effort to ensure public support for a conflict that placed an unprecedented burden upon the populations of both countries. In France, some of the greatest of all medieval writers contributed to this programme, consciously or unconsciously: Alain Chartier, Christine de Pizan, Jean Gerson and their colleagues were naturally hostile to the enemies of France, and called upon their countrymen to rally behind their king and accept reform as the price of victory. At the same time, a number of polemical texts offered a more direct analysis of the war, going beyond the traditional medieval concerns about the evils of the times and the need for moral reform, to examine ‘the legal and historical truth about the quarrel between England and France’, seeking ‘above all to instruct [and] to present the argument against the enemy in a convincing yet viable form’. According to André Bossuat, these polemical treatises were part of the royal plan to win over public opinion and thus reveal ‘les voies mystérieuses qui permettent à la pensée des “clercs” de pénétrer insensiblement le peuple tout entier’ (‘the mysterious ways which allow the thought of “clerks” to become imperceptibly that of the whole people’). More recently, Nicole Pons has claimed that they were primarily designed ‘pour convaincre, pour entraîner l'adhésion du plus grand nombre de lecteurs potentiels possible’ (‘to persuade, to secure acceptance by the greatest number of readers’); while Jacques Krynen has declared that ‘Ce qui rapproche toutes ces oeuvres … c'est le désir plus ou moins avoué de chacun de leurs auteurs d'obtenir la plus large audience possible’ (‘what unites all these works … is the implicit desire to reach the widest possible audience’).