In an earlier post, I mentioned that Pierre Séguier owned the French collection (Paris) of the Oxford-Paris-Londres Bible. Pierre Séguier was one of a handful of individuals who ruled France in the seventeenth century. He purchased the Paris selection of the Bible moralisée. However, he also conducted the trial of Nicolas Fouquet, France’s Superintendant of Finances (1653-1661). (See RELATED ARTICLES.)
In the same post, I described our four Bibles as paradox literature. That paragraph is no longer part of my post. I may have erased it mistakenly or it may have been removed. It could wait. Paradox literature is defined as follows:
In literature, the paradox is an anomalous juxtaposition of incongruous ideas for the sake of striking exposition or unexpected insight. It functions as a method of literary composition and analysis that involves examining apparently contradictory statements and drawing conclusions either to reconcile them or to explain their presence.
Yes, there is a paradox. God used an instrument that man would create: the compass. The artists who illuminated the Creation depicted tools that would make sense to their contemporaries, not to mention the artists themselves. In fact, these examples showed that man was creative. God Himself had to be recognizable. The four depictions of God we have seen could be understood by the humblest among us. Northrop Frye writes that:
Present things are related to past things in such a way that cognition becomes the same thing as re-cognition, awareness that a present effect is a past cause in another form.
Northrop Frye [2]
So, we have created myths, stories (mythoi) of causality.
_________________________ [1] Rescher, Nicholas. Paradoxes:Their Roots, Range, and Resolution. Open Court: Chicago, 2001. [2] Northrop Frye, Creation and Recreation (University of Toronto Press, 1980), p. 59.
Love to everyone 💕
Haydn: Die Schöpfung Hob. XXI:2 / Erster Teil – 1A. Einleitung: “Die Vorstellung des Chaos”
1. Codex Vindobonensis 2554 (Vienna) Only one of the Bibles moralisées listed above shows God working. It is Codex Vindobonensis 2554. The illumination we saw shows God in the process of creating the world. Each folio has a recto-verso arrangement. In other words, when opening the Bible, one sees the Old Testament (Ancien Testament) on one side and the New Testament (Nouveau Testament) on the other side. All represent the Book of Genesis. God or Christ is represented on f 1v. « Ici crie Dex ciel et terre, soleil et lune et toz elemenz ». He God created heaven and earth, the sun and the moon, and all the elements. It was made in France in approximately 1215 – 1230. The text is in Old French, not Latin. It contains 246 folios (bound) Illuminations measure 34.4 x 26 cm (h & w) (haut & large) It is listed in the Warburg Institute Iconographic Database.
Dieu, architecte de l’univers, f 1v 2554 (Vienna) (Photo credit: Wikipedia) (1)
Dieu, architecte de l’univers, f 1v (Vienna) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
2. Codex Vindobonensis 1179 Codex Vindobonensis 1179 is also housed in Vienna. Scenes are represented on both sides of the book and represent the Old Testament, on one side, and the New Testament on the other side. Images represent the Book of Genesis. God or Christ is represented on f 1v. It was made in France in approximately 1225 It contains 130 folios (bound). It is the smallest of our four Bibles. Illuminations measure 43 x 29.5 (h & w) (haut & large) It is listed in the Warburg Institute Iconographic Database.
The St. Louis Bible – The Pantocrator, God the Son, as the Creator of the universe. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) (3)
3. The Bible of St Louis or the Toledo/Pierpont Morgan Library de New York, M. 240. Under the illumination depicting God, we La Bible de Saint Louis – Christ en tant que Créateur de l’Univers (The St. Louis Bible – The Pantocrator, God the Son, Creator of the universe). Images represent Genesis. God the Son is represented on f 1v. It was made in France between 1220-1230 or 1240. It contains 224+222+31+153 parchment folios bound in four volumes. Illuminations measure 34,4 × 26 cm (h & w) (haut & large). It is listed in theWarburg Institute Iconographic Database.
4. Bible moralisée Oxford-Paris-Londres Under the illuminated portrayal of God, one reads Christ en gloire. Le frontispice du volume d’Oxford. It is a copy of the Toledo/Pierpoint Bible moralisée or the St Louis Bible. It is classified as Bodl. 270b, Lat. 11580, Harley 1526-1527 It was made in France between 1230 and 1240 Illuminations measure 40 × 27,5 cm (h & w) or (haut & large) The volumes belonged to John Thwayte in the 16th century and later to Sir Christopher Heydon (1561-1623). Sir Christopher Heydon gave the folios to the Bodleian Library at Oxford. Its French owner was Pierre Séguier, who bequeathed his illuminations it to his grandson Armand du Cambout. The folios were then housed in the abbaye de Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Since the French Revolution, the French folios have been kept in the Bibliothèque nationale de France. Oxford has folios from the Book of Genesis up to the Book of Job, which constitutes 1728 miniatures in medallions. The Bibliothèque nationale de France is home to 1776 miniatures, from the Book of Job and the Book of Malachi. The British Library houses 1408 folios from the Books of Maccabees and the New Testament. It is listed in the Warburg Institute Iconographic Database.
Comments
The Bible of Toledo/Pierpoint is considered the superior Bible. However, unlike the Vienna Bibles, it shows God the son as Creator of the Universe. It, therefore, reflects the dogma of the Holy Trinity. God the Father, God the Son and the Holy Ghost. The Vienna Bibles show God, the architect. In this respect, Vienna Bible Ms 2554, God seems to be at work. This depiction of working is often shown. It may seem literal and naïve, but it is convincing. In Ms 1179, God’s face resembles the face portrayed in Ms 2554. F 1v of the Toledo and Oxford manuscript depict a Christ en gloire, a Majestic God Who nevertheless holds a compass and a world resembling the world of related depictions. It is clearly stated that Christ, as One in three Gods, has created the world.
BLANCHE DE CASTILLE
Blanche de Castille ordered Bibles 1779, 2554 for her husband, but Louis VIII the Lion, born on 5 September 1187, died on 8 November 1226. He reigned for less than four years. The Bible of St. Louis/ToledoMorgan were bought for Louis IX, France. The Oxford-Paris-British Library Bible was ordered for Marguerite de Provence, Louis IX’s wife.
Above is a fourth God pancreator. I have been researching our Bibles moralisées, but my work isn’t finished. It appears Blanche de Castile ordered both the Vienna manuscript and the Bible of Saint Louis. As for the Oxford-Paris-London bible, it is considered a close rival to the Bible of Saint Louis, housed in Toledo and New York.
A 1st-century fresco painting from Pompeii, Italy, depicting the poet Sappho holding a stylus. Photograph: Mimmo Jodice/Corbis (The Guardian)
Most of yesterday’s post was written online. It was quite the adventure. It was published before I had finished writing it. I had a copy in Word, but it was not complete. Moreover, I am not the only person writing my posts. Parts of my posts can be and have been removed by someone else.
Yesterday’s post lacks a formal conclusion, but it is fine as it is. Missing from the post is the name of a Danish scholar and a link to his publication: a booklet.
This morning I added links. One needs a link to Blanche de Castile and Louis IX.
We know that four Bibles moralisées were realized in France in the 13th century and that they constitute paradox literature. You may have noticed the feet of our depiction of Gods. They are nicely depicted if the side of a foot is drawn, but not if the front of the feet is depicted. Dimensionality had not been fully explored when our Bibles were illuminated and it remains somewhat problematical.
On a more personal but interesting note, I would like to tell you that I have recovered from myalgic encephalomyelitis after 44 difficult years. The problem started when I caught a virus in 1976, but ME was not diagnosed until 1991, after I underwent a SPECT scan at Mount Sinaï hospital in Toronto. I was told that my brain was damaged and that I could no longer lead a normal life. I chose to remain intellectually active as a university teacher.
ME disappeared quietly during the last eighteen months to two years. I cannot tell how it went away, but I can tell when my life started to change. It did after a strange three-month flu and voice extinction that triggered advanced emphysema. I had never smoked, not even one cigarette, and I am feeling quite well.
I apologize for rebuilding my post online. It took a long time because older versions would eliminate changes. Life can be strange.
Loreena McKennit sings Greensleeves by Henri VIII
Sappho (1877) by Charles Mengin (1853–1933). One tradition claims that Sappho committed suicide by jumping off the Leucadian cliff. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Ici crie Dex ciel et terre, soleil et lune et toz elemenz Here God creates heaven and earth, the sun and moon and all the elements.
Blanche de Castile
Saint Louis
Allegories and Paradox Literature
However, all four Bibles show an anachronistic and allegorical God.
Northrop Frye discussed what he termed a “continuum of allegory”, a spectrum that ranges from what he termed the “naive allegory” of the likes of The Faerie Queene, to the more private allegories of modern paradox literature.
As I wrote on 19 February, the image I showed awakes in me a feeling I cannot describe adequately, but this discrepancy has a name: paradox literature. The name does not make a God using a compass less mysterious. However, it lifts a veil on the mine of our Medieval ancestors.
In literature, the paradox is an anomalous juxtaposition of incongruous ideas for the sake of striking exposition or unexpected insight. It functions as a method of literary composition and analysis that involves examining apparently contradictory statements and drawing conclusions either to reconcile them or to explain their presence.[1]
God the Geometer Ici crie Dex ciel et terre, soleil et lune et toz elemenz
Science, and particularly geometry and astronomy, was linked directly to the divine for most medieval scholars. Since God created the universe after geometric and harmonic principles, to seek these principles was therefore to seek and worship God.
We are looking at an enluminure from an illuminated Bible manuscript. God the Geometer is from a Bible moralisée made in 13th-century France (1250). God is viewed as a geometer. Yet, geometers could not have existed before God created the world. So, ironically, God is borrowing an instrument that men will create after He has created “heaven and earth, the sun and the moon and all the elements.” Moreover, the instrument reminds me of the Masonic Square and Compasses. (See Great Architect of the Universe, and Freemasonry, Wikipedia)
Discrepancies such as using what has not been created, knowing events before they happen, Jesus redeeming Mary before He was born, awake in me feelings I cannot describe adequately: the ineffable infinity.
You will find below posts on Valentine’s Day. These include information on Candlemas, the Lupercalia, Februus, and Februarius. The month of February has one important Christian feast we have already discussed: Candlemas or laChandeleur. I have updated some of these posts because my sources have been edited or rewritten. New information may have come to light. Charles d’Orléans is discussed in at least two of these posts. Charles d’Orléans is a famous poet, but he was a Prince of the Blood. He was captured at the Battle of Agincourt (25 October 1415) and was a prisoner in England for some 25 years.
Historiated (see above) first letters are quite common in illuminated manuscripts and incunables. Incunables are printed books containing spaces for enluminures. They are also called fifteeners (fifteenth century).
I attempted to copy these posts, but I do not know the Block Editor sufficiently.
Happy New Year to all of you.
I wish you good health and glorious days.
The year 2016 was somewhat bumpy. It brought Brexit and Donald Trump. Mr Trump may not be a duly-elected President of the United States because Russian President Vladimir Putin meddled in an American election.
Let us hope Mr Trump does not change what has been put into place radically. He does not have a clear mandate and countries need stability and continuity. Moreover, what happens in the United States affects the entire world.
A New Year is a beginning and I hope 2017 will bring us joy and peace.
I am inserting Mozart’s Laudate Dominum. It is one of the finest compositions ever. (SeeVesperæ sollenes de confessore,K.339, Wikipedia)
The Battle of Agincourt by Enguerrant de Monstrelet[1](Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Jeanne d’Arc
Painting, c. 1485. An artist’s interpretation, since the only known direct portrait has not survived. (Centre Historique des Archives Nationales, Paris, AE II 2490)
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Although it seems difficult to believe, there was a Jeanne d’Arc (6 January c. 1412 – 30 May 1431). She was born to a peasant family in Domrémy in north-east France, and was directed by the ArchangelMichael, Saint Margaret, and Saint Catherine to fight the English who claimed France as their realm and lead Charles VII the Dauphin,[2] to Reims cathedral where he would be crowned King of France. Kings of France were crowned at Reims cathedral.
Jeanne, or Jehanne, was nicknamed “The Maid of Orléans,” La Pucelle d’Orléans.
The Hundred Years’ War
I have been trying to tell the story of the Hundred Years’ War waged between 1337 and 1453 and must report that it is difficult to fit such a topic in a post.
The Hundred Years’ War opposed the French House of Valois and the English House of Plantagenet, but it was an interrupted war. Basically, it was a war of succession. Eleanor of Aquitaine had married English King Edward II, after her marriage to Louis VII of France was annulled. She had failed to produce a heir to the throne of France. Only males could inherit the crown. She did not lose Aquitaine, so her descendants felt they could claim the throne of France.
That’s how the military conflicts began.
[I have read that during the Hundred Years’ War, it was also proposed that William I, Duke of Normandy having conquered Britain at the Battle of Hastings (1066), Britain could claim the French crown.]
In 1337, English monarch Edward III claimed he was heir to the French crown as the grandson of Philip IV of France. His mother, Isabella of France, was the daughter of King Philip IV. His son, Edward the Black Prince, was the great-grandson of Philip IV of France.
Three battles were fought regarding this claim. Edward III fought the Battle of Sluys, a sea battle, on 24 June 1340. It was an English victory. Six years later, on 26 August 1346, he fought the Battle of Crécy, which was also an English victory. On 19 September 1356, Edward, the Black Prince, Edward III’s son, fought the Battle of Poitiers. It was also an English victory, but the war was not over. It had just begun.
The Black Death
The Battle of Crécy was followed by the Black Death. The Black Death, the plague, was a pandemics that took the life of an estimated 75 to 200 million Europeans. Poland was spared. The Black Death peaked in the years 1346-1353. (See Black Death, Wikipedia.)
There were other battles, which I must leave aside.
Battle of Sluys, 1340
Battle of Crécy, 1346
Edward, the Black Prince
Battle of Sluys, Chroniques de Jean Froissart
Battle of Crécy, Chroniques de Jean Froissart
Edward, the Black Prince (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
During the Caroline War, French King Charles VI (3 December 1368 – 21 October 1422) opposed the Burgundian Dukes. Charles VI of France was 11 years old when his father died (1380). The Dukes of Burgundy therefore ruled France. They were extremely powerful and wanted to reign. In 1388, Charles VI dismissed them all, which was humiliating.
1392
However, in 1392, Charles VI went mad. He nearly killed his brother: Louis I, Duke of Orleans. As of that event, Charles VI the Beloved, le Bien-Aimé, was transformed into King Charles le Fol or le Fou, the Mad. He had long periods of sanity and therefore reigned until his death in 1422, two years after he signed the Treaty of Troyes, discussed below.
1407 – 1435 (Louis d’Orléans is assassinated by a Burgundian = a civil war)
Finally, in 1407, Louis I, Duke of Orleans, a profligate ‘prince of the blood,’ or possible heir to the kingdom of France, was assassinated by John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, the event that triggered the Armagnac-Burgundian Civil War. The Armagnac-Burgundian Civil War erupted in 1407 and lasted until 1435: 28 years. The Armagnacs were loyal to the House of Valois (Charles VI). When Joan of Arc saved France (1429), the Burgundians fought for England, or the House of Plantagenet, but Scottish troops supported the Armagnacs, the French House of Valois.
the Treaty of Troyes (1420) Charles VII is disinherited
Charles VII, of France (crowned in 1429, because of Joan of Arc)
Joan of Arc was active in 1428 – 1429, during the Lancastrian Wars (1415 – 1453), named after John of Lancaster, 1st Duke of Bedford. The war continued to oppose members of the French House of Valois and English House of Plantagenet, but the Siege of Orleans, Jeanne d’Arc’s victory, destroyed the English Kings’ hope to reign over France, but claims did not end. The matter of succession was contentious.
1415
Emboldened by the death, by assassination, of Louis I, Duke of Orleans and by the illness of Charles VI (3 December 1368 – 21 October 1422), King Henry V of England attacked the French at Azincourt (Agincourt). Charles VI, pictured below, did not participate in the Battle of Agincourt, nor did his 12 year-old son, the future Charles VII (22 February 1403 – 22 July 1461). The Battle of Agincourt (25 October 1415), was a decisive English victory. Charles VI avoided capture. However, Charles Duke of Orleans (24 November 1394 – 5 January 1465), was taken into captivity. He was the son of Louis I, Duke of Orleans, an assassinated prince.
Catherine gave birth to a son, the future King Henry VI of England and France, on 6 December 1421. English King Henry VI never saw his son. He was on a campaign in France and died of dysentery, in 1422. Therefore, when Henry V died, in 1422, Henry VI (b.1421), still an infant, was heir to the throne of France.
Nothing so defies logic as the Treaty of Troyes (1420). French King Charles VI disinherited his son Charles VII, the rightful heir. Henry V, King of England would inherit the French throne and he had a son, Philip VI.
The King of France himself, King Charles VI, gave France to the English in what must have been a moment of delusion. Hence the great pity the Archangel Michael asked Joan of Arc to end. In the eyes of the French, Charles VII was King of France by right of primogeniture, the firstborn, but he had not been crowned and Henry VI of England had been made heir to the kingdom of France. John Lancaster, 1st Duke of Bedford, hence the Lancastrian wars, acted as regent of France for his nephew, King Henry VI.
Our story ends with the Siege of Orleans. Given their victory at the Battle of Agincourt and by virtue of the Treaty of Troyes, the British had the upper hand. The Siege began on 12 October 1428 at Orleans, territory belonging to imprisoned Charles, Duke of Orleans. It was a protracted siege, but it was lifted by 8 May 1429.
Jeanne d’Arc entered the Siege late in the conflict, on 22 March 1429, its sixth month, and there were further delays. At first, French officials would not hear her. She was telling a tale that was difficult to believe. She was divinely-ordained to defeat the English and to take Charles VII to Reims. When, at long last, she was allowed to meet the uncrowned King Charles VII, he put own garments that did not suggest he was the King. Yet, she identified him immediately.
The siege of Orleans was lifted by 8 May 1429 and Charles VII was crowned at Reims, on 17 July 1429. Henry VI of England, was crowned King of England on 6 November 1429 and King of France on 16 December 1431, at Notre-Dame de Paris.
However, the war was lost when French King Charles VII was crowned in Reims and France was again a kingdom. Between 1422 and 1429, it had been two kingdoms.
The House of Plantagenet was not able to claim France as its rightful inheritance. The Hundred Years’ War was, to a large extent, a war of succession, but an uncommon war of succession. As unbelievable as it may seem, King Charles VI of France bequeathed France to the King of England, Philip VI, disinheriting his own son, which was treason.
As for Joan of Arc, would that Charles VII, King of France, had saved her. He may have been a coward.
January, Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Wishing all of you a very Happy New Year♥
Illuminated Manuscripts
Illuminated manuscripts are the ancestors of our illustrated books. Famous examples are the Book of Kells, Les Très Riches Heures de Jean de France, Duc de Berry, and Medieval Bestiaries.
During the Middle Ages, le livre d’images (the picture book) was very popular. If one couldn’t read, the image must have been a delight. The most popular book of the Middle Ages was the Légende dorée (The Golden Legend), by Jacobus de Voragine. It was a hagiography, lives of saints and martyrs, but it outsold the Bible. The first printed Bible is the Gutenberg Bible, which I have not discussed yet.
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