Les Neuf Preux - Medieval Masculine Virtue

 Salvete Omnes,

we are in the month of March and this year Easter falls in March, and also March is the month of Nowruz or Spring Equinox - 

City hall of Cologne - ideal of Chivalry, kingship, lordship and secular order

so lets canter through this Medieval theme of Chivalry with Lucas van der Layden's woodcuts - Les Neuf Preux or the Nine Worthies (chivalric masculine heroes) of the European Medieval Christian world:

Pagan heros:
Hector of Troy, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, 

Jewish:
Joshua, king David, Judas Maccabeus 

Christian:
king Arthur, Charlemagne,  Godfrey de Bouillon. 

Also, do look at this French manuscript with some of the greatest late Medieval illuminations - Histoire et faits des neuf preux et des neuf preues. If you like you can view many closeups taken from the manusctipy on this Fb page.

You can also listen to Jonathan Pageau and Richard Rohlin talking about these Medieval superheroes. (also on Twitter-X or  Yt c).

the Medieval Europeans also had Les Neuf Preuses  the Nince Lady Worthies as in the Medieval world there had to be symmetry, beauty and wholeness, unlike in our disjointed world. 

my favorite is queenTomyris of the Saka & Panthesilea of the Amazons

Finally their heraldry is discussed here, on this site.

valete

1st post of 2024 - let the new journey begin

 Salvete Omnes,

so we have made it to this brand New Year - 

and from the Tristan en prose manuscript circa 147 comes this illumination showing a lance duel between two Arthurian knights  - I have chosen this illumination for a sort of  'allegory' of the New Year' victory over the Old Year

Plate armor, lances, great war horses, saddles and harness including curb-bit etc

 

so the New 2023 Year  has sailed - let us hope it will be a good journey for all of us on this God given earth 

ps

for my Polish fellow-travelers - prof. Jacek Kowalski about Old Poland's Christmas Holiday Season traditions - from foods to carols.

Valete

A little Medieval illumination for the first post this 2022

 Salvete Omnes,

So we have survived the Saint Sylvester's long night of revelries and fun, I hope, and here we go with this brand new year, so for starters I would like to share  few illuminations from the XV century Europe (Kingdoms of France & Duchy of Burgundy) and   for this first post AD 2022.

From Sire Jehan Froissart's Chronicles - eg Gallica French National Library  digital collections , but on Wiki Commons there are many galleries with various volumes' illuminations from different times and different masters of miniature painting.

These detailed images com from the brushes of various illuminators working at the Burgundian court etc, including Burgundians Master of Anthony de Burgundy and  Loyset Liedet. 

Valete

Master of Rohan Hours - chivalry splendors

 Salvete Omnes,

dog days of the Summer are continuing on gloriously   - so another 'slow cavalcade'  to the fabulous word of XV century chivalry and medieval manuscript painting  - this time the so called(because the painter is anonymous) master of Rohan book of Hours.
the Hours can be viewed at leisure at the Gallica -French National Library digital site.

Wikipedia has this entry, while world library archive has various volumes available for borrowing - eg The Rohan Master and The Rohan book of Hours.

and I corralled some horse related illuminations from this amazing volume - 

Valete

Jean Pucelle, horse & rider - BNF Gallica manuscripts

 Salvete Omnes,

August is always a difficult month to begin, Dog days on one hand and the remembrance of the tragedy of Warsaw and her Uprising of 1944, especially mentioned on my blog the massacre and genocide of Wola district inhabitants by the Germans. 

But also  this doggy August  brings the memory of our king Sigismund II August, son of Sigismund I and Bona Sforza. Queen Bona gave birth to our future king Sigismund II August on August 1, 1520. He was a good king, he was. Yet he was unable to collect the money his mother had lent the House of Hapsburg. But he made possible the creation of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

So going a bit medieval today, I will first comment that perusing old archives, digital archives included, is like going hunting, and from time to time sweet prizes are to be had.

By pure coincidence I came across the medieval illumination  works cumulatively known as BNF 10483-84 and attributed to a Parisian 14th century  Gothic painter Jean Pucelle, although there were other painters (3 or four) or miniaturists who worked on this two volume Breviaire de Belleville. Interestingly  this breviary was named after  this famous Breton she-wolf Jeanne de Belleville. And until the French Revolution the volumes were held in a Dominican abbey at Poissy, Ille-de-Fance.

     I corralled some of the wonderful illuminations from both volumes, there are  Biblical in literary  context(eg two miniatures of Absalom or David and Goliath) and very XIV century medieval French in material context, for our purposes bits, cinches, saddles, cloth, stirrups, weapons etc :

 

 

Enjoy

Valete

Robinet Testard's horses and wonders from Gallica FNL

Salvete Omnes,
April is almost over, so let us have a little dose of late Medieval manuscript illuminations; for the ills and hopefully also joys of this truly strange Spring of 2020.

Below a detail showing the Amazons  from the illumination below
 
We can study and enjoy the art and imagination of Robinet Testard in the manuscript titled  Les Secrets de l'histoire naturelle contenant les merveilles et choses memorables du monde. - it is thought that he painted these  illuminations circa AD 1480-5.
Prince Henry the Navigator, the mastermind of  the Portuguese oceanic exploration and trade, was dead some two decades earlier, and his compatriots already were sailing along African western coasts, farmed Madeira and the Azores,  and in 1488AD  the Bartolomeu Dias' ships will round the Cape of Good Hope, opening the route to fabled India.
The Castillans (subjects  of queen Isabel's Castilla- Castile) conquered the Canary Islands and in coming yers she would sponsor Cristobal Colon (Columbus), who would sail his small flotilla from Sevilla in the summer of 1492AD.
In 1485 the Age of Discovery was just around the corner for maser Testard, who lived until 1530AD, and his French readers and patrons.

 The manuscript has been digitized and can be read and viewed in its entirety at Gallica French National Library. More details about the plates can he read here (in French).



 
 
 

 

 
 
 
 


Valete