PORTRAITS OF KINGS OF FRANCE on a leaf from Bernard Gui (d. 1331), Arbor genealogiae regum francorum, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on vellum. [Southern France (Toulouse?), 14th century (c. 1320s)]

PORTRAITS OF KINGS OF FRANCE on a leaf from Bernard Gui (d. 1331), Arbor genealogiae regum francorum, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on vellum

[Southern France (Toulouse?), 14th century (c. 1320s)]

a leaf, c. 290 × 215mm, with medieval folio number ‘.xv.’, written in two columns of 38 lines in a typical southern French gothic script in brown ink, flanking a central green tree-trunk and branches, with circular medallions depicting full-length kings of France in the main line and busts of relatives and other significant figures to the sides: TWO LARGE AND TEN SMALLER PORTRAITS, two-line initials alternately in blue with red penwork or red with purple penwork; a water-stain at the upper edge affects the running-titles and top three lines of text, but they remain fully legible, a lighter stain at the fore-edge affects only the blank margin; in a double-sided frame.

PROVENANCE

1. From a manuscript of about 25 leaves, six of which (including the present one) were offered by Maggs Bros, Catalogue 542 (1930), no. 70, and again in their Catalogue 816 (1953), no. 146.
2. Mark Lansburgh (1925–2013), teacher, hand-press printer, and book collector (on whom see Dutschke, 2024): with his pencil no. ‘5’ in the top right corner of the recto.
3. Bruce Ferrini and Sam Fogg, exhibited in London, November–December 1989.
4. The Boehlen Collection, Bern, MS 1305.

TEXT

In 1879 Delisle studied the textual tradition of the work and established that there are at least five different editions, distinguishable by a date at the end of the preamble (1313, 1314, 1317, 1320, or 1331), and by the final events recorded. The 1313 edition ends with the marriage of Isabella of France to Edward II of England in 1308, for example, while the 1331 edition ends with the currency reform of April 1330. More recently, Anne-Marie Lamarrigue has observed that there are two fundamentally different versions: a short one, and a much longer reworked one (Lamarrigue, 1981). The short version exists in six editions, of 1312, 1314, 1315, 1320 (two editions), and 1330. Of the longer version there are two editions, of 1320 and 1331. There are about 20 known copies of the pre-1331 recensions, to which the present copy doubtless belongs. For a recent introduction to the author, the text, and the normal arrangement of the illustrations, see Alison Stones’s discussion of a slightly earlier copy, attributed to Toulouse and perhaps datable to 1315/16 (Stones, 2014, pp. 209–10).

ILLUMINATION AND LAYOUT

The figures are characterised by round chins and jawlines, with rosy cheeks and further touches of pink to the lips and at the top of the forehead, and delicate modelling of wrinkles around the eyes and across the forehead. Hair, when not hidden by a coif, crown, or mitre, falls in three or four rows of curls. The kings are shown in rather simple clothes, but each wearing white gloves, a gold crown, and holding a gold fleur-de-lys-topped sceptre; captions identify them by name and record the length of their reign: on the recto is Charles, known as ‘The Simple’, who reigned for 25 years (‘Karolus, cognomento Simplex, regnant annis xxv’), i.e. Charles III (879–929), who reigned 898–922; and on the verso his son, Louis IV (920–954).

The ‘family tree’ as a genealogical concept had been in use since at least the 10th century, but it was not until the early 14th century, in the work of Bernard Gui, that the idea was elaborated to depict the tree as vegetal and semi-naturalistic, often with a brown trunk and green leaves. Marigold Norbye discusses the use of vegetal tree imagery for the depiction of medieval French royal genealogies, and observes that the analogy is rather ill-suited to the purpose, partly because real trees grow upwards from the ground, whereas manuscript genealogies almost invariably progress downwards from the top (Norby, 2014).

Three of the sister leaves are now in the McCarthy Collection, in the catalogue of which three more are identified, and the contents of the others deduced, allowing a fairly complete reconstruction of the arrangement of the original manuscript (Kidd, 2021, no. 71).

REFERENCES

L. Delisle, ‘Notice sur les manuscrits de Bernard Gui’, Notices et extraits des manuscrits de la bibliothèque nationale et autres bibliothèques, 27 (1879), pp. 169–455 at 254–58: ‘VII. Arbre généalogique des rois de France’.

Maggs Bros, London, Catalogue 542: The Art of Writing, 2800 B.C. to 1930 A.D. (1930), no. 70.

Maggs Bros, London, Catalogue 816: A Century of Printed Books (1462–1562) and Some Manuscripts (1953), no. 146.

A.M. Lamarrigue, ‘La méthode historique de Bernard Gui, d’après La chronique des rois de France’, in Bernard Gui et son Monde, Cahiers de Fanjeaux: Collection d’Histoire religieuse du Languedoc au Moyen Âge, 16 (Toulouse, 1981), pp. 215–19.

Bruce Ferrini and Sam Fogg, Medieval & Renaissance Miniature Painting, catalogue by J.M. Heinlen of an exhibition held in London, November–December 1989 (1989), no. 5 (col. ill.).

A. Stones, Gothic Manuscripts: 1260–1320, Part Two, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in France (London and Turnhout, 2014).

M.A. Norbye, ‘Arbor Genealogiae: Manifestations of the Tree in French Royal Genealogies’, in The Tree: Symbol, Allegory, and Mnemonic Device in Medieval Art and Thought, ed. by P. Salonius and A. Worm (Turnhout, 2014), pp. 69–93.

P. Kidd, The McCarthy Collection, III (London, 2021), no. 71, referring to the present leaf at p. 245 (‘Private collection, Switzerland’).

C. Dutschke, ‘Mark Lansburgh: Collector and Seller of Medieval Manuscripts’, in Medieval Manuscripts and Their Provenance: Essays in Honour of Barbara A. Shailor, ed. by A.S.G. Edwards (Brewer, 2024), pp. 116–31.