illumination – Page 6 – Medieval Studies Research Blog: Meet us at the Crossroads of Everything

February 12, 2015October 10, 2017

The Froissart Harley: Caricature on the Margins?

Miniature of a joust between Pierre de Courtenay and Sire de Clary with marginalia of a stag with wings and a sow with a conical hat on stilts on the left-hand side. Netherlands (Bruges), Late 15th century, Harley MS 4379 f. 19v.

The Froissart Harley, Harley MS 4379, is a manuscript filled with popular conceptions of the medieval period: knights, jousting, courtiers, war, queens and kings. Harley MS 4379 consists of the fourth volume of Froissart’s Chronicle, which recounts the events of the Hundred Years’ War. The manuscript was produced between 1470 and 1472 at the behest of Philippe de Commynes, one of the most powerful members of Charles the Bold’s court.

Detail of miniature of a joust between Pierre de Courtenay and Sire de Clary. Netherlands (Bruges), Late 15th century, Harley MS 4379 f. 19v.

Froissart’s Chronicle explores courtly life, the sphere of the nobility, but his work also teaches noble listeners: it includes emblematic examples of good, contemporary rulers, meant to advise a young lord in the proper governance of his subjects.

Detail of a miniature of tents and mounted knights, with marginal illumination, including a rabbit and snail jousting on the shoulders of monkeys. Netherlands (Bruges) Late 15th century, Harley MS 4379, f. 23v.

Although the text itself instructed its readership in proper chivalric behavior, the illustrations and marginalia enliven dry discussions of events such as siege warfare and provide images to connect to the chapter text. One particularly interesting feature of Harley MS 4379 centers on the depictions of animal marginalia and how they relate to the text.

Detail of a marginal painting of a winged stag. Netherlands (Bruges), Late 15th century, Harley MS 4379, f. 19v.

Any medieval reader would have comprehended allegorical associations with animals. One notable example of such symbolism occurs in the hunting scene in Fit 3 of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. While Gawain remains in Bertilak’s castle with Bertilak’s wife, his host hunts for three days: the first day he hunts deer, the second a boar, and the third a fox. The alternating hunting scenes and bedroom scenes narrated in Fit 3 parallel one another, underlining the analogous relationship between his lady’s attempts to trick Gawain and the Bertilak’s attempts to catch his prey.

Detail of a marginal painting of a rabbit and a snail jousting on the shoulders of monkeys. Netherlands (Bruges), Late 15th century, Harley MS 4379 f. 23v. Knights jousting against snails are a common occurrence in medieval manuscripts, but no satisfactory explanation has been supplied as to why!

However, the animal symbolism in the Froissart Harley differs from the hunting scenes in Gawain in an obvious fashion. While Gawain’s animals are meant to reinforce Gawain’s perilous situation, the marginalia in the Froissart Harley seem to caricature their own text. Regarding the rabbit and snail jousting, neither animal symbolically represents the jousting knights in the center miniature, nor do these two animals have a broader meaning in medieval bestiaries concerning jousting. These marginalia are meant to represent and enhance the text they accompany, but this point is problematic when considering the Burgundian approach to chivalry, the milieu out of which this manuscript emerged. Burgundians valued chivalric ideals above all else, as is shown by the great status granted to those of the Order of the Golden Fleece, a knightly order created by the dukes of Burgundy. Associating a rabbit and a snail with the jousters of Inglevert, perhaps the most vibrant and epic tournament in Froissart’s Chronicle, most likely would not have pleased a Burgundian audience.

Detail of a marginalia painting: a sow with a conical hat on stilts, playing a harp. Netherlands (Bruges), Late 15th century, Harley MS 4379 f. 19v.

Nor does the Master of the Froissart Harley spare courtly women in his caricatures. On the margin of folio 19v, the illustrator places a sow on stilts wearing a conical hat, playing the harp. This sow draws attention to the miniature of female courtiers, all wearing conical hats on watching the tournament in the middle of the page. Again, this characterization is paradoxical in a Burgundian context: pigs typically represented uncleanliness and greed, unfortunate traits for a woman trying to navigate the vicissitudes of court.

Detail of a miniature of courtiers watching a joust. Netherlands (Bruges), Late 15th century, Harley MS 4379, f. 23v.

Sean Sapp
PhD Candidate
Department of History
University of Notre Dame

This post is part of an ongoing series on Multimedia Reading Practices and Marginalia: Medieval and Early Modern

Read to Yourself, Please: Oral and Silent Medieval Reading Practices

When we think about reading, we usually imagine reading silently to ourselves—unless we’re reading to children, or sharing an especially funny or interesting blog post with a friend! (Feel free to do this). But in the early medieval period, the reverse held true: oral reading was more common than silent reading. For example, in Augustine’s Confessions, Augustine visits his friend and mentor Ambrose, and is surprised by Ambrose’s eccentric habit of reading silently:

“When he read, his eyes scanned the page and his heart sought out the meaning, but his voice was silent and his tongue was still. Anyone could approach him freely, and guests were not commonly announced, so that often, when we came to visit him, we found him reading like this in silence, for he never read aloud” (Confessions [Paris, 1959], 6.3).

King Solomon reading the Scriptures, MS Additional 11639, f. 116r, France, 1277-1286, courtesy of the British Library

Oral reading was a public, social event. One person would read aloud to the group, and the group could give him or her feedback, comment on the text, and discuss afterwards.

Litigants reading from a scroll before a seated judge, MS Additional 37473, f. 2r, Italy, last quarter of the 13th century, courtesy of the British Library

In the twelfth century, however, reading practices started to change. Silent reading became more popular, eventually becoming the most common way of reading in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

Blessed Benedictine Cardinal reading and contemplating alone, MS Additional 18197, f. F, c. 1460-c. 1490, courtesy of the British Library

As a private, portable experience, silent reading opened a whole new kind of learning. You could now learn on your own, without hearing others’ feedback or criticism. You could spend as long as you wanted on a particular section and re-read it as often as you wanted. You could have two manuscripts in front of you and cross-reference them, or check the citations in one manuscript against a copy of the cited text.

Silent reading influenced the way manuscripts were arranged. Because texts were read visually, not heard, manuscripts frequently included a table of contents, subheadings, and other similar organizational markers (ordinatio). The new interest in structure and cross-referencing helped shape scholastic writings. Scholastic authors wrote (in)famously dense, complex works for an audience that could re-read long sentences and check manuscripts against each other.

Ordinatio of Arundel 479, ff. 39v-40r, Italy, 1471, courtesy of the British Library

Silent reading also contributed to heterodoxy—private readers could access heretical works without the censorship or criticism that might take place in a group reading. Similarly, private reading triggered a small revival in fifteenth-century French pornographic manuscripts. (Imagine trying to read a medieval Shades of Grey in front of a group!)

The privacy of silent reading also transformed devotional and spiritual experiences. It allowed the reader’s mind to briefly wander but return to the spiritual texts, discovering the hidden and mystical meanings in an intensely personal way. Monastic orders in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries emphasized silent contemplation and meditation which began with private reading. These new practices contributed to new ways of thinking about the self and one’s relationship to God, ideas that culminated in the Protestant Reformation.

A Benedictine monk prays to Christ after contemplating Scripture, MS Additional 11639, England, c. 1265, courtesy of the British Library

While oral reading never really disappeared, the medieval rise of silent reading transformed reading and devotional practices. Ultimately, it contributed to modern ways of thinking about God, the community, and the self.

Caitlin Smith
PhD Candidate
Department of English
University of Notre Dame

This post is part of our ongoing series on Multimedia Reading Practices and Marginalia: Medieval and Early Modern.

January 22, 2015November 24, 2023

National Vine-Pruning Month

It will probably come as a surprise that August is ‘Spinal Muscular Atrophy Month’. However, you might be aware that April is National Poetry month, June LGBT pride month, and September Childhood Cancer Awareness month. Our long list of commemorative months, each designed to weigh on national thought, strongly gives the impression that months have allegorical meaning and that we should shape our daily lives according to them. One might say the Middle Ages had its own version of this phenomenon, as people routinely looked to the order of the natural world for spiritual guidance and direction. The Labors of the Month were hugely popular pictorial representations of certain agricultural duties for each month, like you see here. They are found throughout the Middle Ages in architecture, sculpture, stained glass, and books. Books of Hours, a very popular type of book in the Middle Ages containing prayers to be said throughout the day, frequently exhibited the Labors of the Month in their calendars.

The Bohun Psalter and Hours, England, 2nd half of the 14th century; London, British Library, Egerton MS 3277., f. 2r

Almanac, England, 1st quarter of the 15th century; London, BL Harley MS 2332, f. 3v

Queen Mary Psalter, England, 1310-1320; London, BL Royal MS 2 B VII, f. 73v

Though all from the same country from the 14th-15th centuries, the images above show distinct designs for the month of March. In the Labors of the Months, March was generally represented by men pruning vines for the coming spring (Hourihane 2007: lvi). In Egerton 3277, the image is actually placed inside the initials KL for ‘Kalendas’, making it a so-called ‘inhabited initial’, as the image ‘inhabits’ the letters. The images in Harley 2332 and Royal 2 B VII, however, take up a large portion of the page. Unlike many medieval Labor scenes, each of the three presented here focus on the action of pruning, not the landscape in which it occurred. This suggests that the featured vine-pruning bears reflective, allegorical significance and that this image is not simply an artful representation of agricultural life. In fact, as scholar Matthew Reeve has noted, these types of images likely stressed the coming ‘perpetual religious service in the vineyards of the Lord’ (2008: 130). Some literary works of the period like Piers Plowman might even indicate knowledge of the meaningfulness attached to such labors.

It is important to remember that Books of Hours were not for the farmer or vine-trimmer. Rather, they were a privileged possession for those wealthy enough to even own a book, let alone one ornately decorated. If not for religious contemplation, then, it is of some wonder why the upper classes were so fascinated with images of backbreaking agricultural labor.

So, the next time you are informed that July is National Ice Cream month, know that here ice-cream stands on the shoulders of vine-pruners, and that humanity’s penchant for iconic monthly guidance is a long-standing tradition and probably here to stay.

Axton Crolley
Ph.D. Candidate
Medieval Institute
University of Notre Dame

This post is part of an ongoing series on Multimedia Reading Practices and Marginalia: Medieval and Early Modern

See also:
Hourihane, C., Time in the Medieval World: Occupations of the Months & Signs of the Zodiac in the Index of Christian Art (Princeton UP, 2007)

Reeve, M., Thirteenth-Century Wall Painting of Salisbury Cathedral (Boydell, 2008)