Visual and Textual Authority: Reading Chevalier in Manuscripts of La Vie des pères
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Karen Casey Casebier
Abstract
This article explores the text and image of Chevalier, a tale from La Vie des pères. In this miracle tale, a pious knight is so enraptured by the Mass that he fails to report to the tournament field, foregoing an opportunity to win earthly glory and riches in favor of spiritual enlightenment. He then learns that the Virgin Mary has replaced him in the tournament and has defeated all the knights on the field. The story highlights the conflation between the sacred and the profane by heightening the tension between the knight’s secular pursuits and his religious devotion. However, Chevalier is also a tale that conflates text and image, precisely because a coherent narrative whose edifying message demonstrates the essential Christian truth of faith, grace, and mercy only emerges when the illuminations that accompany it in the original manuscript are ‘read’ together with the text.
Abstract
This article explores the text and image of Chevalier, a tale from La Vie des pères. In this miracle tale, a pious knight is so enraptured by the Mass that he fails to report to the tournament field, foregoing an opportunity to win earthly glory and riches in favor of spiritual enlightenment. He then learns that the Virgin Mary has replaced him in the tournament and has defeated all the knights on the field. The story highlights the conflation between the sacred and the profane by heightening the tension between the knight’s secular pursuits and his religious devotion. However, Chevalier is also a tale that conflates text and image, precisely because a coherent narrative whose edifying message demonstrates the essential Christian truth of faith, grace, and mercy only emerges when the illuminations that accompany it in the original manuscript are ‘read’ together with the text.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Acknowledgements V
- Table of Contents VII
- Blurred Boundaries in Pre-Modern Texts and Images: Aspects of Audiences and Readers-Viewers Responses 1
- The Sacred and the Profane in German Courtly Romances and Late Medieval Verse Narratives: With an Emphasis on Ulrich Bonerius and Heinrich Kaufringer 15
- The Poetic and Ideological Blurring of Boundaries in the Jewish Book of Ethics Orḥot Ṣaddiqim 41
- Laughing at Death: Blurred Boundaries in Giotto’s Last Judgment 57
- The Popular in Service of the Sacred: The Sculpted Musicians of Santiago de Compostela 79
- Image and Legend of Saint Margaret as an Aid in Childbirth Rituals 101
- Violent Women and the Blurring of Gender in some Medieval Narratives 125
- On the Heavenly and the Earthly, the Secular as Sacred – A New Reading of Medieval Hebrew Fables 145
- The Secular and the Sacred in a Bifolio from Louis of Laval’s Book of Hours and Its Spiritual Use 165
- Between Psalter and “Mirrors for Princes”: On the Moral and Didactic Messages in BL Cotton MS Domitian A XVII 185
- Visual and Textual Authority: Reading Chevalier in Manuscripts of La Vie des pères 205
- Aspects of Italian and Flemish Identity in Relation to Book Illumination: Reception of Devotional and Antiquarian Ideas through Depictions of Jewelry 229
- List of Illustrations 249
- Notes on Contributors 253
- Index 255
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Acknowledgements V
- Table of Contents VII
- Blurred Boundaries in Pre-Modern Texts and Images: Aspects of Audiences and Readers-Viewers Responses 1
- The Sacred and the Profane in German Courtly Romances and Late Medieval Verse Narratives: With an Emphasis on Ulrich Bonerius and Heinrich Kaufringer 15
- The Poetic and Ideological Blurring of Boundaries in the Jewish Book of Ethics Orḥot Ṣaddiqim 41
- Laughing at Death: Blurred Boundaries in Giotto’s Last Judgment 57
- The Popular in Service of the Sacred: The Sculpted Musicians of Santiago de Compostela 79
- Image and Legend of Saint Margaret as an Aid in Childbirth Rituals 101
- Violent Women and the Blurring of Gender in some Medieval Narratives 125
- On the Heavenly and the Earthly, the Secular as Sacred – A New Reading of Medieval Hebrew Fables 145
- The Secular and the Sacred in a Bifolio from Louis of Laval’s Book of Hours and Its Spiritual Use 165
- Between Psalter and “Mirrors for Princes”: On the Moral and Didactic Messages in BL Cotton MS Domitian A XVII 185
- Visual and Textual Authority: Reading Chevalier in Manuscripts of La Vie des pères 205
- Aspects of Italian and Flemish Identity in Relation to Book Illumination: Reception of Devotional and Antiquarian Ideas through Depictions of Jewelry 229
- List of Illustrations 249
- Notes on Contributors 253
- Index 255
