Charles, duc d'Orléans, prince and poet, was a captive in England for twenty-five years following the battle of Agincourt. The studies in this volume, by European and American scholars, focus on his life and actions during that time, and show him as a serious and learned reader, a cunning political figure (accomplished in the skills that would impress the English nobility around him), and a masterful poet, innovative, witty, and intensely self-aware. Discussion of his manuscripts, his social and political relationships, his extensive library, and his poetry in two languages reveal him as a shrewd observer of life, which in his poetry he describes in ways not seen again until the Renaissance.

Contributors: MICHAEL K. JONES, WILLIAM ASKINS, GILBERT OUY, M. ARN, CLAUDIO GALDERISI, JOHN FOX, R.C. CHOLAKIAN, A.C. SPEARING, DEREK PEARSALL, JANET BACKHOUSE, JEAN-CLAUDE MUHLETHALER, A.E.B. COLDIRON