O reino das emoções : a utilização do sentido de affectus na política régia capetíngia de Luís IX segundo Gilberto de Tournai (séc.XIII)

Abstract

This thesis has as objective the study of the political uses of the term affectus, through the actions and gestures of the capetian king, Louis IX, in the French kingdom, in the period from 1226 to 1270. We believe that the usage of the term affectus constituted one of the capetian political strategies for the moral reparation of the kingdom of France. We will seek to analyse how the political vocabulary, being influenced by the term affectus, imposed social rule and order to the emotional community of this kingdom, having as the main intellectual source the work written by the franciscan friar Gilbert de Tournai, Eruditio Regum et Principum (the instruction of kings and princes), a treatise finished in 1259, a sort of pedagogical-political work which can be classified in the genre known as mirrors of princes (Specula principum). For this research, biographies and hagiographies were also used and consulted. They were written after Louis IX’s death. They narrate the main events of his life, among them, the practice of charity works, considered, in this study, as political actions which reaffirm his political image as an affectionate king towards his subjects, chiefly the very poor (pauperes), people whom he wanted to identify with, inspired by the franciscans’ way of life, which was based on living a life of evangelical poverty.