Textual and Visual Representations of Power and Justice in Medieval France: Manuscripts and Early Printed Books eds. by Rosalind Brown-Grant, Anne D. Hedeman, and Bernard Ribémont (review)

The eleven essays in this volume are united under the broad themes of power, political authority, and justice in France, predominantly during the late Middle Ages. As Rosalind Brown-Grant notes in her Introduction, the collection is interdisciplinary and cross-cultural, with contributions from social and political historians, art historians, literary studies scholars, and a museum curator, variously based at institutions in France, the USA, and England.

The contributors explore the subject by examining both textual and visual evidence, and all discuss specific illuminated manuscripts or illustrated printed books. As academic and legal texts were rarely illustrated, most of the manuscripts under discussion are luxurious illuminated copies destined for princely patrons, and as such tend to expose the attitudes of the most powerful in medieval society.

Several essays examine how particular texts and illustrations reflected contemporary politics or implicitly criticised unpopular rulers. These include Anne D. Hedeman’s analysis of illustrations in two splendid copies of Laurent de Premierfait’s translation from Boccaccio, Des cas des nobles hommes et femmes, made for the warring dukes John of Berry and John the Fearless (Geneva, Bibliothèque de Genève, Ms. fr. 190/1 and Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, Ms. 5193, respectively) in the early fifteenth century. In her chapter, Rosalind Brown-Grant discusses a richly illustrated manuscript of the prose romance Roman de Florimont (BnF, Ms. fr. 12566) that was probably commissioned for the Duke of Burgundy, Philip the Good, in the early 1450s. She shows how the text and illustration of this particular version of the romance served as a tool for constructing and promoting political ideology at the court of Valois Burgundy. Lydwine Scordia examines how Louis XI was tacitly condemned as falling short of ideal leadership through textual and pictorial pastoral metaphors of the shepherd, the wolf, and the whale in manuscripts including Le Livre de trois ages (BnF, Ms. Smith-Lesoüef 70) and Le naufrage de la Pucelle (BnF, Ms. fr. 14980).

The role of the judge is the focus of two essays: Barbara Denis-Morel examines text and illustration in legal and other manuscripts, dating from the thirteenth century to the fifteenth. She finds that while writers were well aware of judges’ potential for corruption, illustrations of this figure were invariably idealised, suggesting an inherent respect for the judicial office and function. Likewise, in their study of devotional works such as La Légende dorée and the Speculum historiale, Maïté Billore and Esther Dehoux reveal that in most depictions of saints’ torture and martyrdom, the presiding judge is not depicted pejoratively, unlike the actual assailants, who are often shown as ugly and contorted by evil.

Other contributors examine women in the context of power and judgement. In her chapter on Claude of France, Kathleen Wilson-Chevalier argues against the common view of her as a mere pawn in the political turmoil of the early sixteenth century. Instead, she shows that before her untimely death, Claude’s empowered private and public identities were preparing her to assume a position of authority. Yasmina Foehr-Janssens examines how in legal judgements involving adultery in romance texts, the queen’s eroticised body and physical beauty operated as a replacement for her autonomous, spoken voice. Cynthia J. Brown also explores issues of gender in her discussion of three debate texts, wherein female personifications are associated with psychological instability and male personifications with power.

Mention should be made of the only printed book discussed in the volume. Mary Beth Winn examines Robert Gobin’s moral treatise Loups ravissons, published by Anthoine Vérard around 1505, which was illustrated with a series of remarkable, expressive woodcuts of the Dance of Death.

The interdisciplinary nature of the volume...