Christine de Pizan (1364-c.1430) composed 'Le Livre de la Cité des Dames' as a response to the misogynistic writings of the time. In 1475, Jan de Baenst, a descendant of a Bruges family, ordered a translation, 'Het Bouc van de Stede der Vrauwen'. This book tells the story of this codex by focusing on the background of the commissioner, the codicological aspects, the illumination program (41 miniatures), and the translator's personal epilogue. With a summary in Dutch and French.
This comprehensive and richly illustrated catalogue focuses on the finest illustrated manuscripts produced in Europe during the great epoch in Flemish illumination. During this aesthetically fertile period – beginning in 1467 with the reign of the Burgundian duke Charles the Bold and ending in 1561 with the death of the artist Simon Bening – the art of book painting was raised to a new level of sophistication. Sharing inspiration with the celebrated panel painters of the time, illuminators achieved astonishing innovations in the handling of color, light, texture, and space, creating a naturalistic style that would dominate tastes throughout Europe for nearly a century. Centering on the notable artists of the period – Simon Marmion, the Vienna Master of Mary of Burgundy, Gerard David, Gerard Horenbout, Bening, and others – the catalogue examines both devotional and secular manuscript illumination within a broad context: the place of illuminators within the visual arts, including artistic exchange between book painters and panel painters; the role of court patronage and the emergence of personal libraries; and the international appeal of the new Flemish illumination style. Contributors to the catalogue include Maryan W. Ainsworth, curator of European paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; independent scholar Catherine Reynolds; and Elizabeth Morrison, assistant curator of manuscripts at the Getty Museum. Illuminating the Renaissance is published in conjunction with an exhibition organized by the Getty Museum, the Royal Academy of Arts, London, and the British Library to be held at the Getty Museum from June 17 to September 7, 2003, and at the Royal Academy of Arts from November 25, 2003 to February 22, 2004.
The Familiar Enemy re-examines the linguistic, literary, and cultural identities of England and France within the context of the Hundred Years War. During this war, two profoundly intertwined peoples developed complex strategies for expressing their aggressively intimate relationship. This special connection between the English and the French has endured into the modern period as a model for Western nationhood. Ardis Butterfield reassesses the concept of 'nation' in this period through a wide-ranging discussion of writing produced in war, truce, or exile from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century, concluding with reflections on the retrospective views of this conflict created by the trials of Jeanne d'Arc and by Shakespeare's Henry V. She considers authors writing in French, 'Anglo-Norman', English, and the comic tradition of Anglo-French 'jargon', including Machaut, Deschamps, Froissart, Chaucer, Gower, Charles d'Orléans, as well as many lesser-known or anonymous works. Traditionally Chaucer has been seen as a quintessentially English author. This book argues that he needs to be resituated within the deeply francophone context, not only of England but the wider multilingual cultural geography of medieval Europe. It thus suggests that a modern understanding of what 'English' might have meant in the fourteenth century cannot be separated from 'French', and that this has far-reaching implications both for our understanding of English and the English, and of French and the French.
This collection of essays focuses on the questions of women's access to a written culture in medieval Britain and their representation within it. It explores women's engagement with Anglo-Norman, English and Welsh as well as Latin, and addresses issues including orality and literacy and women's exclusion from a written tradition. It considers the question of the levels of literacy attained by women, and contemporary attitudes to their acquisition of such skills, as well as the historical evidence for women's activity as writers, patrons and readers. It also examines the representation of women within different literary genres, both secular and religious - their possession or lack of power, and their roles as lovers, mothers and saints. This is the first such volume to focus on these issues within the specific framework of late medieval Britain, and as such constitutes a unique contribution to the study of women and medieval literary history.
The English literary canon is haunted by the figure of the lost woman writer. In our own age, she has been a powerful stimulus for the rediscovery of works written by women. But as Jennifer Summit argues, "the lost woman writer" also served as an evocative symbol during the very formation of an English literary tradition from the fourteenth through the sixteenth centuries. Lost Property traces the representation of women writers from Margery Kempe and Christine de Pizan to Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots, exploring how the woman writer became a focal point for emerging theories of literature and authorship in English precisely because of her perceived alienation from tradition. Through original archival research and readings of key literary texts, Summit writes a new history of the woman writer that reflects the impact of such developments as the introduction of printing, the Reformation, and the rise of the English court as a literary center. A major rethinking of the place of women writers in the histories of books, authorship, and canon-formation, Lost Property demonstrates that, rather than being an unimaginable anomaly, the idea of the woman writer played a key role in the invention of English literature.
Who were the medieval illuminators? How were their hand-produced books illustrated and decorated? In this beautiful book Jonathan Alexander presents a survey of manuscript illumination throughout Europe from the fourth to the sixteenth century. He discusses the social and historical context of the illuminators' lives, considers their methods of work, and presents a series of case studies to show the range and nature of the visual sources and the ways in which they were adapted, copied, or created anew. Alexander explains that in the early period, Christian monasteries and churches were the main centers for the copying of manuscripts, and so the majority of illuminators were monks working in and for their own monasteries. From the eleventh century, lay scribes and illuminators became increasingly numerous, and by the thirteenth century, professional illuminators dominated the field. During this later period, illuminators were able to travel in search of work and to acquire new ideas, they joined guilds with scribes or with artists in the cities, and their ranks included nuns and secular women. Work was regularly collaborative, and the craft was learned through an apprenticeship system. Alexander carefully analyzes surviving manuscripts and medieval treatises in order to explain the complex and time-consuming technical processes of illumination - its materials, methods, tools, choice of illustration, and execution. From rare surviving contracts, he deduces the preoccupation of patrons with materials and schedules. Illustrating his discussion with examples chosen from religious and secular manuscripts made all over Europe, Alexander recreates the astonishing variety and creativity ofmedieval illumination. His book will be a standard reference for years to come.
Between the ninth and thirteenth centuries the Western world witnessed a glorious flowering of the pictorial arts. In this lavishly illustrated book, C.R. Dodwell provides a comprehensive guide to all forms of this art--from wall and panel paintings to stained glass windows, mosaics, and embroidery--and sets them against the historical and theological influences of the age. Dodwell describes the rise and development of some of the great styles of the Middle Ages: Carolingian art, which ranged from the splendid illuminations appropriate to an emperor's court to drawings of great delicacy; Anglo-Saxon art, which had a rare vitality and finesse; Ottonian art with its political and spiritual messages; the colorful Mozarabic art of Spain, which had added vigor through its interaction with the barbaric Visigoths; and the art of Italy, influenced by the styles of Byzantium and the West. Dodwell concludes with an examination of the universal Romanesque style of the twelfth century that extended from the Scandinavian countries in the north to Jerusalem in the south. His book--which includes the first exhaustive discussion of the painters and craftsmen of the time, incorporates the latest research, and is filled with new ideas about the relations among the arts, history, and theology of the period--will be an invaluable resource for both art historians and students of the Middle Ages.
Essays on the turbulent history of Syon Abbey, focussing on the role played by reading and writing in constructing its identity and experience. Founded in 1415, the double monastery of Syon Abbey was the only English example of the order established by the fourteenth-century mystic St Bridget of Sweden. After its dispersal at the Dissolution, the community survived in exile and was briefly restored during the reign of Mary I; but with the accession of Elizabeth I, some of the nuns and brothers once again sought refuge on the Continent, first in the Netherlands and later in Lisbon. This volumeof essays traces the fortunes of Syon Abbey and the Bridgettine order between 1400 and 1700, examining the various ways in which reading and writing shaped its identity and defined its experience, and exploring the interconnections between late medieval and post-Reformation monastic history and the rapidly evolving world of communication, learning, and books. They extend our understanding of religious culture and institutions on the eve of the Reformationand the impulses that inspired initiatives for early modern Catholic renewal, and also illuminate the spread of literacy and the gradual and uneven transition from manuscript to print between the fourteenth and the seventeenth centuries. In the process, the volume engages with larger questions about the origins and consequences of religious, intellectual and cultural change in late medieval and early modern England. E.A. JONES is Senior Lecturerin English, University of Exeter; ALEXANDRA WALSHAM is Professor of Modern History and a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. Contributors: E.A. Jones, Alexandra Walsham, Peter Cunich, Virginia Bainbridge, Vincent Gillespie, C. Annette Grise, Claire Walker, Caroline Bowden, Claes Gejrot, Ann Hutchison
