This thesis examines the struggle between King Louis XI and the great feudal houses of the fifteenth century such as Burgundy, Brittany, Anjou, Armagnac, Bourbon, and Foix. It attempts to provide a detailed narrative based on the primary sources and the excellent studies on individual feudal princes produced by a number of French historians, supplemented by a critical analysis of the traditional view of Louis XI as the "vainquer de la grande féodalité."

Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

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This article opens up an important but overlooked chapter in the political and diplomatic history of Florence, as well as that of fifteenth-century Franco-Italian relations more broadly. In late 1461, the city of Florence elected ambassadors to go to France to congratulate King Louis XI on his accession to the throne. Intended as a purely ceremonial mission, the Florentine diplomat Piero de' Pazzi ignored his commission and pursued policies that explicitly promoted French interests in Italy. By doing so, Piero sought to improve the standing of his own family, both domestically and abroad, at the expense of the Medici regime in Florence and the anti-French Italian League that the Medici supported. This article offers for the first time a full investigation of a surprisingly early example of tensions between the Medici and the Pazzi, tensions that famously erupted in the Pazzi Conspiracy of 1478.

Le 11 décembre 1481, le roi Louis XI rattachait le comté de Provence souverain au royaume de France. Cela ne s’accomplit pas sans que les grands sanctuaires provençaux reçoivent de sa part des offrandes importantes, tels la chapelle de la Sainte-Baume, le chef-reliquaire d’or de Sainte-Marthe de Tarascon, et, dans une certaine mesure, le tombeau du dernier comte Charles III de Provence dans la cathédrale Saint-Sauveur d’Aix. Mais sa munificence religieuse de quatre décennies en Provence, connut bien d’autres développements (fondations, rentes, privilèges). Cette étude originale est un essai de synchronisation d’une ambitieuse politique de munificence avec son contexte de marche à l’annexion. Pour une vision d’ensemble, la zone étudiée s’élargit aux petits États périphériques du comté de Provence, Avignon et le Comtat Venaissin, la principauté d’Orange, le comté de Nice, la seigneurie de Monaco et le Bas-Dauphiné. Dans ce dernier, à la cathédrale Notre-Dame d’Embrun, au contact du Gapençais provençal, Louis XI a vraisemblablement offert de somptueuses grandes orgues dont plusieurs éléments sont encore visibles. La présence physique du dauphin Louis, puis la forte présence politique du roi Louis XI dans cette « aire provençale », sont révélatrices du grand intérêt que suscite le Midi de la part du royaume de France, selon une tradition remontant aux Capétiens. Les modalités et la croissance de cette convoitise chez Louis XI, ses implications économique et sociale, ses manifestations plastiques, les véhicules de l’idéologie monarchique tels que l’esthétique flamboyante, mais aussi la rivalité inévitable avec l’influent comte René d’Anjou, tiennent ici lieu de problématiques. / On december 11th 1481, the king of France Louis XI achieved the incorporation of sovereign Provence into the kingdom of France. This did not happen without the greatest provençal sanctuaries receiving from him important offerings like the Sainte-Baume chapel, the Sainte-Marthe of Tarascon gold head reliquary, and the last earl Charles III of Provence tomb in the Saint-Sauveur cathedral of Aix. Actually, his four decades religious munificence in Provence spread out with various forms (foundations, annuities, privileges). This original study is an attempt to synchronize an ambitious policy of munificence with its context of an annexation in progress. For a general sight of the situation, the geographical area of the study is extended to the small provençal states surrounding the earldom of Provence, it is to say Avignon and the Comtat Venaissin, the principality of Orange, the earldom of Nice, the lordship of Monaco and the southern Dauphiné. There, in the Notre-Dame cathedral of Embrun, in close contact with the provençal earldom of Gap, Louis XI appears as the donator of the flamboyant organ, still visible in parts. The physical presence of the dauphin Louis, then the strong political presence of king Louis XI, in this “provençal area” reveal the great interest of French kingdom for the south, following an ancient tradition started by the capetian kings. The details and the growth of Louis XI’s covetousness, its economical and social implications, its artistic demonstrations, the medium of the monarchic ideology, as the flamboyant gothic esthetics, but the unavoidable rivalry with the influential earl René d’Anjou as well, are the main issues investigated here.