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Harley MS 4431
- Record Id:
- 040-002050268
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002050268
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000807.0x00035f
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 4431
- Title:
-
Christine de Pizan, Collected works ('The Book of the Queen')
- Scope & Content:
-
The manuscript, known as 'The Book of the Queen', includes Works by Christine de Pizan, assembled for Isabel (Isabeau) of Bavaria, queen consort of Charles VI of France, and produced under the author's supervision. Possibly some passages are in the hand of Christine de Pizan herself. Formerly bound as a single volume: catchword (f. 177v), in volume 1, gives the incipit to Le chemin de long estude, in volume 2. Now the manuscript is divided in two volumes: vol. 1: ff. 1r-177v, and vol. 2: ff. 178r-398v.
Decoration:
2 half-page miniatures in gold and colours (ff. 3r, 290r). Numerous smaller miniatures in gold and colours, the width of one column. Large initials in gold and colours with ivy and foliate motifs, sometimes with a full border with acanthus and flowers (f. 3r), with gold ivy and flowers (ff. 4r, 390r), or with a partial border (f. 2v), or with a few foliate ink tendrils. Initials in colours and gold, sometimes with foliate ink tendrils. Paraph marks and line-fillers in red, blue and gold. Cadels with scrolls wrapped around the ascenders.
Miniatures attributed to the Master of the Cité des Dames and workshop and to the Master of the Duke of Bedford.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Harley Collection
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002050268", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 4431: Christine de Pizan, Collected works ('The Book of the Queen')" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} },{ "id" : "041-002353509", "parent" : "040-002050268", "text" : "Harley MS 4431, ff 1r-177v: Christine de Pizan, Collected works ('The Book of the Queen'), vol. 1" },{ "id" : "041-002353510", "parent" : "040-002050268", "text" : "Harley MS 4431, ff 178r-274r: Christine de Pizan, Collected works ('The Book of the Queen'), vol. 2" }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002050268 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 4431 : Christine de Pizan, Collected works ('The Book of the Queen') - Contains:
- Harley MS 4431, ff 1r-177v : Christine de Pizan, Collected works ('The Book of the Queen'), vol. 1
Harley MS 4431, ff 178r-274r : Christine de Pizan, Collected works ('The Book of the Queen'), vol. 2
Click here to View / search full list of parts of Harley MS 4431 - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[4424]/040-002050268
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
-
Parchment codex
- Digitised Content:
- http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Harley_MS_4431 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- French
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1405
- End Date:
- 1419
- Date Range:
- c 1410-c 1414
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
- Restrictions to access apply please consult British Library staff
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript.
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 365 x 285 mm (text space: 245 x 195 mm).
Foliation: Bound in two volumes with continuous foliation: vol. 1: ff. 177(+ 8 unfoliated flyleaves: 3 paper leaves and 2 ruled parchment leaves at the beginning and 3 paper leaves at the end; + 2 unfoliated ruled parchment leaves after f. 50); vol. 2: ff. 220 (+ 8 unfoliated: 4 paper flyleaves at the beginning and 3 paper and one parchemnt at the end; + 2 unfoliated ruled parchment leaves after f. 374).
Collation: vol. 1: i2 (ff.1-2); ii8+1 (ff. 3-11); iii-vi8 (ff. 12-43); vii8+4-1 (ff. 49-52 including 2 unfoliated leaves after f. 50; 1 originaly blank leaf excised after f. 50**; a quire of 4 leaves is inserted in the main quire of 8 leaves between ff. 48 and 51); viii-xii8 (ff. 53-92); xiii2 (ff. 93-94); xiv-xxiii8 (ff. 95-173); xxiv4 (ff. 174-177); vol. 2: xxv-xxix8 (ff. 178-217); xxx4-1 (ff. 218-220; 1 leaf excised after f. 219); xxxi16 (ff. 221-236); xxxi-xxxiii8 (ff. 237-252); xxxiv2 (ff. 253-254); xxxv4-1 (ff. 255-257); xxxvi-liii8 (ff. 258-398; including 2 unfoliated leaves after f. 374 in quire l and 1 unfoliated leaf after f. 398 in quire liii). Catchwords and bifolium signatures. Bifolium signatures start in quire ii (ff. 3-11).
Script: Gothic.
Binding: British Museum, 1962. Green leather with gold tooling. A paper leaf has been added when the manuscript was rebound in the middle of every opening bearing a miniature.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: France (Paris).
Provenance:
Isabel (Isabeau) of Bavaria (b. 1371, d. 1435), queen consort of Charles VI, king of France (married in 1385), manuscript produced for her under the supervision of Christine de Pizan (b. c. 1364, d. c. 1430): presentation miniature (f. 3r), dedicatory poem (ff. 3r-3v); probably between 1413 and 1414: Ballade 9 (Encore aultres balades) refers to Jean de Bourbon's 'hault voyage' identified with the re-cupture of Subise in 1413 (see Laidlaw 2005). Probably presented to the queen as the New Year's gift in January 1414.
John [John of Lancaster], duke of Bedford (b. 1389, d.1435), regent of France and prince, perhaps purchased by him in 1424 with the entire French royal library at Louvre after Charles VI's death.
Jacquetta, daughter of Pierre de Luxembourg, count of St Pol, and second wife of John of Lancaster, between 1433 and 1472: inscribed 'Jaquete/Jaquette' (ff. 1r, 51v, 52v, and in the miniature on f. 115v); and with her motto 'sur tous autres' (ff. 1r and 387r).
Anthony Woodville, Baron Scales and second Earl Rivers (between 1442 and 1483), eldest son of Jacquetta through her second marriage (?1437) to Richard Woodville (d. 1469): inscribed with his motto 'Nulle la vault ariviers' (f. 1r).
Lodewijk van Brugge (Louis de Bruges; Lodewijk van Gruuthuse), earl of Winchester, October 1472, (d. 1492): inscribed with his motto and his name 'Plus est en vous. Gruthuse' (f. 1r).
Henry Cavendish (b. 1630, d. 1691), second Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne: inscribed 'Henry Duke of Newcastle his booke 1676' (f. 1r).
The Harley Collection, formed by Robert Harley (b. 1661, d. 1724), 1st earl of Oxford and Mortimer, politician, and Edward Harley (b. 1689, d. 1741), 2nd earl of Oxford and Mortimer, book collector and patron of the arts. Probably acquired by Edward Harley through marriage: Henrietta Cavendish-Holles, grand-daughter of Henry Cavendish, married Edward, 2nd Earl of Oxford, in 1713. The Cavendish-Holles Library at Welbeck passed to Edward Harley by 1725, following the death of Henrietta's mother, Lady Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire, on 24 December 1716. Certainly in the collection of Edward Harley by the time of his death in 1741: old Harley press-mark '128. C. 12' (f. 1r).
Edward Harley bequeathed the library to his widow, Henrietta, née Cavendish Holles (b. 1694, d. 1755) during her lifetime and thereafter to their daughter, Margaret Cavendish Bentinck (b. 1715, d. 1785), duchess of Portland; the manuscripts were sold by the Countess and the Duchess in 1753 to the nation for £10,000 (a fraction of their contemporary value) under the Act of Parliament that also established the British Museum; the Harley manuscripts form one of the foundation collections of the British Library.
- Administrative Context:
- France (Paris).
- Information About Copies:
-
Full digital coverage: Digitised Manuscripts, https://bl.uk/manuscripts/.
- Publications:
-
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), II (1808), no. 4431.
F. Madden, 'Narratives of the Arrival of Louis de Bruges, Seigneur de la Gruthuyse', Archaeologia: Miscellaneous Tracts Relating to Antiquity, 26 (1836), 265-86.
H. Shaw, Dresses and Decorations of the Middle Ages, from the Seventh to the Seventeenth Centuries (London: William Pickering, 1843), II, pl. 43.
Walter de Gray Birch and Henry Jenner, Early Drawings and Illuminations: An Introduction to the Study of Illustrated Manuscripts (London: Bagster and Sons, 1879), p. 14.
Oeuvres poétiques de Christine de Pisan, ed. by M. Roy, 3 vols. (Paris: Société des Anciens Textes Français, 1886-1896), especially I, pp.xii-xvii, and III, frontispiece, pp. xxi-xxiv.
The Epistle of Othea to Hector, ed. by G. F. Warner (London: J. B. Nichols and Sons, 1904), frontispiece, pp. xviii, xxxv-xxxvii.
Léopold Delisle, Recherches sur la librairie de Charles V (Paris: H. Champion, 1907), I, pp. 134-35.
Henri Martin, La Miniature française du XIIIe au XVe siècle (Paris: G. Van Oest, 1923), pp. 75-76, 101-02, fig. CXIV.
M. S. Pinet, Christine de Pisan (Paris: H. Champion, 1927), p. 204.
G. F. Warner, Reproductions from Illuminated Manuscripts, (London: British Museum, 1928), 4, p. 14, pl. xxxv.
P. A. Becker, 'Christine de Pizan', Zeitschrift für Französische Sprache und Literatur, 54 (1930), 129-64.
E. G. Millar, Souvenir de l'exposition de manuscrits français à peintures organisée à la Grenville Library (British Museum) en janvier-mars 1932 (Paris, 1933), no. 40, pl. XL.
P. Le Gentil, 'Christine de Pisan, poète méconnu', in Mélanges d'histoire littéraire offerts à Daniel Mornet (Paris, 1951), pp. 1-10.
Curt F. Bühler, ‘The Apostles and the Creed’, Speculum: A Journal of Mediaeval Studies, 28 (1953), 335-39.
Curt F. Bühler, ‘Christine de Pisan and a Saying attributed to Socrates’, Philological Quarterly, 33 (1954), 418-20.
John H. Harvey, The Wilton Diptych: A Re-examination (Oxford: Vivian Ridler-Society of Antiquary, 1961) [reprint from Archaeologia, 98 (1961)], p. 15, n. 4.
F. Lecoy, 'Note sur quelques ballades de Christine de Pisan', in Fin du Moyen Age et Renaissance: mélanges de philologie française offerts à Robert Guiette (Anvers, 1961), pp. 107-14.
Rosemond Tuve, ‘Notes on the Virtues and Vices’, part I, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 26 (1963), 264-303 (p. 275, n. 20, p. 276, n. 23, p. 281, n. 34, p. 282, n. 35, 36, pl. 34c, pp. 295-96, p. 297, n. 55, pp. 298-99, n. 58).
Bonnie Young, ‘The Lady Honor and Her Children’, The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin (1963), 340-48 (pp. 346-47, fig. 6).
C. Willard, 'An Autograph Manuscript of Christine de Pizan?', Studi Francesi, 27 (1965), 452-57.
Gianni Mombello, La tradizione manoscritta dell'Epistre Othea de Chrstine de Pizan: Prolegomeni all'edizione del testo, Memorie dell’Accademia delle Scienze di Torino. Classe di scienze morali, storiche e filologiche, ser. 4. no. 15 (Turin: Accademia delle Scienze, 1967), no. 38.
C. E. Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), pp. 98, 104, 203.
Millard Meiss, with Sharon Off Dunlap Smith and Elizabeth Home Beaton, French Painting in the Time of Jean de Berry: The Limbourgs and Their Contemporaries, 2 vols (London: Thames and Hudson, 1974) I, pp. 292-96, 329.
Sandra Hindman and James Douglas Farquhar, Pen to Press: Illustrated Manuscripts and Printed Books in the First Century of Printing (College Park: University of Maryland, 1977), pp. 49, 160, 167-68.
Linda Ehrsam Voigts, 'One Anglo-Saxon View of the Classical Gods', Studies in Iconography, 3 (1977), 3-16 (p. 14, n. 32).
Liliane Dulac, ‘Un mythe didactique chez Christine de Pizan : Sémiramis ou la veuve héroïque (Du De Mulieribus Claris de Boccace à la Cité des Dames)’, Mélanges de philologie romane offerts à Charles Camproux, 1 (Montpellier: Université Paul-Valry, 1978), 315-43, (pp. 341-43).
Muriel J. Hughes, ‘The Library of Philip the Bold and Margaret of Flanders, first Valois duke and duchess of Burgundy’, Journal of Medieval History, 4 (1978), 145-88 (p. 181).
G. Ouy and C. Reno, 'Identification des autographes de Christine de Pizan', Scriptorium, 34 (1980), 221-38.
Jennifer Harris, ‘Jane Morris’s Jewel casket’, The Antique Collector, 12/84 (1984), 68-71.
P. M. De Winter, 'Christine de Pizan, ses enlumineurs et ses rapports avec le milieu bourguignon', in Actes du 104e Congrès National des Sociétés Savantes (1979) (Paris, 1982), pp. 335-76.
Sandra Hindman, 'The Composition of the Manuscript of Christine de Pizan's Collected Works in the British Library: A Reassessment', British Library Journal, 9 (1983), 93-123.
Sandra Hindman, 'The Iconography of Queen Isabeau de Bavière (1410-1415): An Essay in Method', Gazette Des Beaux-Arts, 102 (1983), 102-10.
Sandra Hindman, Christine de Pizan's Epistre Othea: Painting and Politics at the Court of Charles VI, Studies and Texts, 77 (Toronto: Pontificial institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1986), passim, pls 4-6, 9-11, 14, 17, 19-20, 22, 27, 30, 32, 35,36, 39, 41, 43, 47, 68,69, 85.
J. C. Laidlaw, 'Christine de Pizan - A Publisher's Progress', Modern Language Review, 82 (1987), 35-75.
Ian Roberts, Pontefract Castle (Wakefield: West Yorkshire Archaeology Service, 1990), p. 42 (ill.).
Mise en page et mise en texte du livre manuscrit, ed. by Henri-Jean Martin and Jean Vezin (Paris: Cercle de la Librairie-Promodis, 1990), p. 275.
Yoshiaki Todoroki, 'A List of Miniatures of Goddess Fortune in Medieval Manuscripts', Cultural and Social Sciences, 41 (1990), 71-114 (p. 89).
Anne D. Hedeman, The Royal Image: Illustrations of the Grandes Chroniques de France, 1274-1422 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), p. 163, fig. 111.
Jonathan J. G. Alexander, Medieval Illuminators and their Methods of Work (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), p. 49.
Jerzy Miziolek, 'Europa and the Winged Mercury on Two Cassone Panels from the Czartoryski Collection.', Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 56 (1993), 63-74.
Sandra Hindman and Stephen Perkinson, 'Insurgent Voices. Illuminated Versions of Christine de Pizan's Le Livre du Duc des vrais amans', in City of Scholars : New Approaches to Christine de Pizan. International Christine de Pizan Conference, Berlin, 1992, ed. by Margarete Zimmermann and Dina de Rentiis (Berlin: W. De Gruyter, 1994), pp. 221-31.
Scot McKendrick, ‘La vraye histoire de Troye la grant’: Truth and Romance in the Late Medieval Story of Troy in Literature and Art', in Why Fakes Matter. Essays on Problems of Authenticity, ed. by Mark Jones (London: British Museum, 1992), 71-80 (pp. 75, 77, fig. 4).
Albert Châelet, ‘Modalités et origins du réalism dans l’enluminure parisieene entre 1380 et 1415’, in Flanders in a European Perspective: Manuscript Illumination around 1400 in Flanders and Abroad, ed. by Maurits Smeyers and Bert Cardon (Leuven: Uitgeverij Peeters, 1995), 27-39 (p. 31, pl. 3).
M. Vale, 'An Anglo-Burgundian Nobleman and Art Patron: Louis de Bruges, Lord of la Gruthuyse and Earl of Winchester', in England and the Low Countries in the Late Middle Ages, ed. by C. Barron and N. Saul (Stroud and New York, 1995), pp. 115-31.
D. B. Mahoney, 'Courtly Presentation and Authorial Self-fashioning: Frontispiece Miniatures in Late Medieval French and English Manuscripts.', Medievalia: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Medieval Studies Worldwide, 21 (1996), 97-142.
Kathleen L. Scott, Later Gothic Manuscripts 1390-1490, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 6, 2 vols (London: Harvey Miller, 1996), II, pp. 263, 265.
Janet Backhouse, The Illuminated Page. Ten Centuries of Manuscript Painting in the Birtish Library, (Toronto: University Press, 1997), pp. 158-59, fig. 136.
Christian Heck, 'De la Mystique à la Raison: la spéculation et le chemin du ciel dans Le Livre du chemin de long estude', in Au Champs des escriptures: IIIe colloque international sur Christine de Pizan, ed. by E. Hicks (Paris: Champion, 2000), pp. 709-21, figs. 1-7.
Christine de Pizan, Le chemin de longue étude, édition critique du ms. Harley 4431, ed. by Andrea Tarnowski (Paris: Livre de Poche, 2000), pp. 45-69.
Albert Châtelet, L'Age d'or du manuscrit à peintures en France au temps de Charles VI et les Heures du Maréchal Boucicaut (Dijon: Institut de France, 2000), fig. 16, 68-70.
Pamela Porter, Medieval Warfare in Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2000), p. 28.
James Laidlaw, 'Christine and the Manuscript Tradition', in Christine de Pizan: a Casebook, ed. by Barbara K. Altmann and Deborah L. McGrady (New York: Routledge, 2003), pp. 231-49 (pp. 243-45).
Art from the Court of Burgundy (1364-1419) (Paris: Réunion des Musées Nationaux, 2004), no. 10 [exhibition catalogue].
Michaela Braesel, ‘The Influence of Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts on the Pre-Raphaelites and the Early Poetry of William Morris’, Journal of William Morris Studies, 15.4 (2004), 41-54 (pp. 46-47).
Paris 1400: Les artes sous Charles VI (Paris: Fayard 2004), cat. 55 [exhibition catalogue].
James Laidlaw, 'The Date of the Queen’s MS (London, British Library, Harley MS 4431)', 2005, http://www.pizan.lib.ed.ac.uk/harley4431date.pdf [accessed 9 May 2012].
The Grant Atelier: Patheways of Art in Europe (5th-18th Centureis), ed. by Roland Recht (Brussels: Europalia, 2007), no. VI.28 [exhibition catalogue].
Margaret Scott, Medieval Dress & Fashion (London: British Library, 2007), pp. 129-32, pls 77, 79.
Christine de Pizan: the Making of the Queen's Manuscript (British Library and University of Edinburgh, 2008): http://www.pizan.lib.ed.ac.uk/index.html [accessed 8 August, 2008]
Philip Howard, The British Library: A Treasure House of Knowledge (London: Scala Publishers, 2008), no. 4.
Joe Flatman, Ships and Shipping in Medieval Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2009), pl. 74.
Peter Barber and Tom Harper, Magnificent Maps: Power, Propaganda and Art (London: British Library, 2010), pl. on p. 76.
Craig Taylor, 'The Treatise Cycle of the Shrewsbury Book, BL Ms. Royal 15 E. vi', in Collections in Context: The Organization of Knowledge and Community in Europe (14th-17th Centuries), ed. by Karen Fresco and Anne D. Hedeman (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 2011), pp. 134-50 (p. 146).
Karen Fresco, ‘Christine de Pizan’s Livre des fais d’armes et de chivalerie and the Coherence of Brit. Lib. MS Royal 15 E. vi’, in Collections in Context: The Organization of Knowledge and Community in Europe (14th-17th Centuries), ed. by Karen Fresco and Anne D. Hedeman (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 2011), pp. 151-72 (pp. 165, 170).
James Laidlaw and Charlie Mansfield, ‘Patterns and Fingerprints in London, British Library, MS Harley 4431’, Digital Philology, 6.1 (2017): 121–136, https://doi.org/10.1353/dph.2017.0004.
Charlotte E. Cooper, ‘Fit for a Prince: The Ten Alternative Commandments in Christine de Pizan’s Epistre Othea’, in The Ten Commandments in Medieval and Early Modern Culture, eds. Youri Desplenter, Jürgen Pieters and Walter Melion (Leiden: Brill, 2017), pp. 49-74.
Charlotte E. Cooper ‘Ambiguous Author Portraits in Christine de Pizan’s Compilation Manuscript, British Library MS Harley 4431’, Performing Medieval Text, ed. Ardis Butterfield (Leeds: Legenda, 2017), pp. 89-107.
Charlotte E. Cooper ‘Présences, publics et portraits ambigus du manuscrit British Library, Harley 4431’, Le Moyen Français, vols. 78-79 (2016), pp. 1-15.
Charlotte E. Cooper, ‘Learning to Read Christine de Pizan’s Epistre Othea', Pecia. Le Livre et l’écrit, vol. 17 (2014), pp. 41-63.
- Exhibitions:
- The Middle Ages, (online), 26 March 2015-
The Renaissance Nude, Getty Center, Los Angeles, 30 October 2018 - 27 January 2019
The Renaissance Nude, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 28 February 2019 - 2 June 2019 - Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)