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specifically through consecration with holy oil, recalling the way David had been anointed by
Samuel. 45 The typological links to David were further developed at the end of the fifteenth
century during the reign of Charles VIII (1483-1498). As part of a treatise backing the king’s
claims to Naples, the French writer Liénard Baronnat wrote that the domus David had become
the house of the most Christian king of France, implying that God’s preference for the Israelites
46
now extended to the French. The esteem with which David was held continued in the
seventeenth century, at which time the Jesuit Father Nicolas Caussin referred to him as among
f the earth.” 47
“the most holy monarchs” and included him with “the great ones o
Solomon served as a model for French kings since the Capetian dynasty. The Old
Testament king was especially suited as a typological parallel for Louis IX, whom
contemporaries praised for his acts of justice and admired for his construction of numerous
churches. 48 Indeed throughout the tenure of his reign Louis IX established religious foundations
and built churches, some of the most notable of which include the royal Abbey of Royaumont, a
palace chapel at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, and the thirteenth-century reconstruction of Saint-
Denis. 49 As Daniel Weiss has shown, the Sainte-Chapelle of Paris best demonstrates the
connection between Louis IX and Solomon. 50 Apart from constructing the chapel as a means of
emulating his Old Testament model, Louis IX used a section of the stained glass to associate his
reign with that of the builder of the Temple of Jerusalem, depicting both himself and Solomon as
kneeling kings in adjacent windows (fig. 40). By equating his rule with that of Solomon, he
showed that the king of France likewise profited from the preferred status of God. 51
The direct importance of Solomon to Louis XIII in the seventeenth century is
demonstrated by the publication in 1617 of an anonymous pamphlet dedicated to the king titled
Le Salomon de la France. 52 Appearing shortly after the coup d’état, through which the king was
able to assume his personal reign, and intended as a guide for a virtuous monarch, the pamphlet
repeatedly compared the wisdom and justice of Louis XIII to that of Solomon. It also presented
the Old Testament king as an authoritative ruler on whom Louis could model his reign, stating:
“Inside your kingdom you are not less the sovereign of your people and temporal lord of the
clergy than Solomon was in his because your power is ordered from God as was his.” 53 The
quote functioned as a contemporary reminder of Louis XIII’s divine right, confirming that his
authority to rule came directly from God as opposed to any earthly source.
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