Histoire Ancienne jusqu’à César, or Estoires Rogier, the history of the ancient world, in French, illuminated manuscript on vellum

provenance

(1) Illuminated for Yves du Fou (d.1488), of Fou en Poitou, knight, counsellor and chamberlain to Louis XI, Grand Veneur de France (1472), Governor of the Dauphiné (1475), considerable landowner in Brittany and Poitou, and brother of Raoul du Fou, bishop of Angoulême and Évreux (Anselme, Hist. Généalogique, VIII, 1733, pp.703-4).  He was a not inconsiderable bibliophile and also owned BnF. mss.fr. 111, 12330, 20313, 20314, 22500 and 23084, and he was the dedicatee of the Jardin des Nobles of Pierre des Gros, now in the Hermitage in St Petersburg (Delisle, Cabinet des Manuscrits, II, 1874, p. 367; and M. Prinet, ‘Manuscrits de la librairie d’Yvon du Fou’, Bibliographie moderne, V-VI, 1912-13, pp.313-19).  His arms appear twice on the first page here, azure, a fleur-de-lys argent between two sparrowhawks affronted argent, beaked and membered or; adapted and quartered (as mentioned above and exactly as in the manuscripts in the Bibliothèque nationale de France cited above) with or a griffin gules, presumably the arms of his wife Anne Bourande.  If the present manuscript was made for Yves du Fou as a bachelor and subsequently modified on his marriage, then the date of the wedding is a potential terminus ante quem for the illumination.  Their second son François du Fou died in September 1536 aged 60; he was therefore born in 1476-77 and his parents were very possibly married in the early to mid 1470s, a date which accords well with the style of the manuscript. In the lower margin of fol.181r is an inscription scratched in blind in a very formal sixteenth-century italic hand, not easily legible but perhaps providing a clue as to how the manuscript left the possession of the family, “Mademoyselle de la boucheture avecque sa banierre les sera” (last three words uncertain).

(2) Alexander Douglas, tenth duke of Hamilton (1767-1852), his MS. 391; with the ‘HB’ monogram which was assumed by de Ricci to represent items which came to the duke of Hamilton from his celebrated father-in-law, William Beckford (1760-1844), of Fonthill, but which actually represents ‘Hamilton and Brandon’.  Although many books from Fonthill did indeed join the Hamilton Palace library, the greatest items were bought by the duke himself during many journeys abroad.  The manuscript collection, one of the finest ever assembled in Britain, was consigned to Sotheby’s for sale in 1882, the present manuscript being catalogued as lot 243.

(3) Before the sale, however, the collection was bought en bloc by Prussian government, for £83,000 and is now mostly in Berlin.  The present manuscript was described by W. von Seidlitz, ‘Die illustrierten Handschriften der Hamilton-Sammlung’, Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft, VII, 1883, p.299.  Following a huge political outcry, however, 61 manuscripts, including many of the finest, were sold by Bismarck to Trübner of Strasbourg and were reconsigned to Sotheby's, and thus the present book returned to England, Berlin-Hamilton Palace sale in our rooms, 23 May 1889, lot 47, to Robson.

(4) John William Pease (1820-1900); and by descent to his grandson, C.H.B. Pease (1924-2005), second Lord Wardington, with his gilt booklabel inside the lower cover; exchanged by him with Charles Traylen for an atlas, c.1980, and then sold by Traylen to Tenschert (his Catena Aurea, cat.16, 1984, no.10, including plate on back cover).

(5) Sold in our rooms, 26 November 1985, lot 107, bought by Lawrence Schoenberg, the present owner; it is his LJS.17; exhibited, Bibliotheca Schoenbergiensis, An Exhibition from the Collection of Lawrence J. Schoenberg, University of Pennsylvania, 1995-96, no.16, illustrated on the front cover of the exhibition handlist; Bibliotheca Schoenbergiensis, Selections from the Manuscript Collection of Lawrence J. Schoenberg, 1996, Trout Gallery, Dickinson College, Pennsylvania, no.16, fig.4 in the catalogue; Illuminated Manuscripts, loan exhibition, Blumka Gallery, New York, 1999, no.21, cat. pp.84-87; and Specula: Mirrors of Man and Nature, Manuscripts from the Collection of Lawrence J. Schoenberg, University of Pennsylvania, 2001, no.9.

text

This is one of the great medieval histories of the whole known world from the Creation to Julius Caesar, encompassing events from Genesis, Assyrian history, Greek mythology and history, the stories of Troy, the Amazons, Hercules, and the rise of classical Rome, all seen through the eyes of thirteenth-century France.  The heading on folio 1r describes the author as being Eutropius, the fourth-century Roman historian, but Eutropius is only one of many sources for this encyclopaedic account (in any case, Eutropius’s history goes back merely to the founding of Rome), and the text derives from Orosius, Livy, Lucan, Suetonius, and many others.  The compiler is not known but may have been Wauchier de Denain.  The text was written in French and dedicated to Rogier, châtelain of Lille (d. c.1230), from which it is sometimes known as the ‘Estoires Rogier’.  The text is a grand aristocratic historical fanfare of pageantry, knights, kings, battles, adventures and ancient legends, mingling fact with chivalric fiction and education with amusement.  The various versions of the text are discussed in P. Meyer, ‘Les premières compilations françaises d’histoire ancienne’, Romania, XIV, 1884, pp.1-81, and in the Dictionnaire des lettres françaises, Le Moyen Age, 1992, pp.684-5.  The present manuscript is cited in C. Pavlidès, ‘L’Histoire Ancienne jusqu’à César (première rédaction), Étude de la tradition manuscrite’, thesis, École des Chartes, 1980, p.116, and in M. de Visser-van Terwisga, Histoire ancienne jusqu’à César (Estoires Rogier), II, 1995, p.14, no.73 (“actuellement non localise”), and p.22, n.66.  See also, D. Oltrogge, Die Illustrationszyklen zur ‘Histoire ancienne jusqu’à César’, 1250-1400, 1989, which does not mention the present manuscript, and L. Mahoney, ‘Re-Presenting the Past: The Histoire Ancienne jusqu’à César in the Context of the Crusades’, thesis, John Hopkins University, 2004.  The text is mentioned also in C. de Hamel, A History of Illuminated Manuscripts, 1986, illustrating the present manuscript on p.148, pl.144.

The present manuscript belongs to the first redaction of the text, the original version of the thirteenth century.  It includes the epilogue describing Caesar’s conquest of France from fol.347r, “Adonques lan tout droitement …”, not found in all copies but known in some thirteenth-century manuscripts, such as BnF, ms.fr. 20125, fol.369r.  The text of the Histoire Ancienne exists in 68 manuscripts, listed by de Visser-van Terwisga.  She records the present copy as untraced and cites only two others as being still in private hands, Pommersfelden Schlossbibliothek HS.295, and the former Chester Beatty-Sachs-Schøyen copy (Kraus cat.117, 1983, no.6, etc.), now on deposit at the J. Paul Getty Museum.  An abridgement of the text, sold in these rooms, 29 November 1990, lot 115, is now Osaka, Otemi University Library, MS.1.

The manuscript opens on fol.1r, “Cy commence le livre de lestorement du monde nomme eutropius et comment dieu forma adam et eve, Quant dieu eut fait le ciel et la terre …”, and it ends on the last leaf, “… la cite et ceulx qui y”.

illumination

The volume is lavishly illustrated with over fifty quintessential medieval chivalric scenes of knights, battles, damsels and monsters, apparently attributable to the workshop of the Master of Jeanne de Laval, named after the Psalter of Jeanne de Laval, second wife of René d’Anjou (Poitiers, ms.41).  The workshop was evidently active from about 1430 until around 1480 and involved a number of artists in the style of the Loire painters associated with Nantes and Angers.  The artist had many links with Angers, which is the Use of most of his liturgical books, but the stylistic association with the Master of Adélaïde of Savoy, who must have worked in Poitiers, and his patronage in the court of King René d’Anjou suggest a location in Poitou.  The present book, made for one of the great landowners of Poitou, would seem to confirm this (cf. E. König, Französische Buchmalerei um 1450, der Jouvenal-Maler, der Maler des Genfer Boccaccio und die Anfänge Jean Fouquets, 1982, p.256; and F. Avril in Avril and Reynaud, Les manuscrits à peintures en France, 1440-1520, 1993, pp.126-7).  There are doubtless several hands in the illumination of the present book.  The first, closest to the Master of Jeanne de Laval himself, painted the miniatures up to fol.67v, and some after that.  Features of these paintings include the purplish colours, characteristic of illumination in Tours, and a bright orange and wine red; shadows are hatched; women and children have pale faces and fair hatched hair; and figures sometimes step out of the frames of their miniatures.  He is probably different from the illuminator of the miniatures on fols.73v, 74v, 79r and 93v, which employ large areas of muted paint, with shadows in wash.  His hand is perhaps closer to an artist whom Professor König named the Second Painter of the Oxford Hours (op. cit., p.254).  There may be as many as three other hands elsewhere in this vast and noble manuscript.

The subjects of the miniatures are:

1. Folio 1r, The creation of Adam and Eve, 103mm. by 70mm., God, wearing a long purple robe standing before Adam who is seated naked on the ground surrounded by animals and birds including a lion, a wolf, several deer and a peacock.

2. Folio 4r, God standing before Cain, 58mm. by 67mm., pointing to blood on the ground and accusing him of the murder of his brother Abel, as Cain holds a hatchet and strikes his breast in remorse.

3. Folio 6v, Noah entering the Ark, 63mm. by69mm., Noah with his wife and three sons rounding up various animals and birds and carrying them to the Ark which is moored in a small lagoon.

4. Folio 27v, Abraham and the three angels, 70mm. by 69mm., the angels telling him that his wife Sarah is to bear him a son, as Sarah herself peers round the door and laughs in disbelief.

5. Folio 30r, The destruction of Sodom, 82mm. by 68mm., Lot fleeing the tumbling city with his daughters and wife who looks back and is turned into a pillar of salt.

6. Folio 34r, The Sacrifice of Isaac, 74mm. by 68mm., Abraham holding a sword above the head of his kneeling son as an angel holds the sword and points instead to a ram on a hilltop.

7. Folio 42v, Jacob tricking his father Isaac, 97mm. by 68mm., the ailing and near-blind Isaac lying in a sumptuous canopied bed fondling the back of Jacob’s neck which is draped in kid skins.

8. Folio 54r, Esau supervising the building of Domas, 103mm. by 70mm., standing before a labourer hewing stones before a vast purple castle.

9. Folio 62r, Joseph and Potiphar’s wife, 90mm. by 70mm., Joseph running down the path away from a castle as Potiphar’s wife seizes the hem of his cloak.

10. Folio 65r, Pharaoh with his astronomers, 88mm. by 68mm., the ruler seated on his throne consulting three men with golden instruments, a Chinese pye, a sundial, and a quadrant.

11. Folio 67r, Joseph’s triumphal procession, 110mm. by 69mm., Joseph in a carriage accompanied by Pharaoh on horseback riding through the streets of a walled city as the people kneel in obeisance.

12. Folio 67v, Jacob’s brothers taking leave of their father, 69mm. by 68mm., at the start of their journey to Egypt by donkey to buy corn.

13. Folio 73v, Joseph identifying himself to his brothers, 107mm. by 68mm., Joseph standing beneath a golden canopy as his brothers kneel before him and the attendants leave the room.

14. Folio 74v, Jacob learning the news, 98mm. by 69mm., the patriarch sitting beneath a red canopy listening to his kneeling sons who have returned to tell him that Joseph is alive.

15. Folio 77r, Pharaoh welcoming Jacob, 134mm. by 70mm., the king seated on his throne under a great red canopy giving his hand to the kneeling Jacob who is surrounded by his sons, set in a throne room with courtiers and golden vases displayed on a coffer.

16. Folio 79r, Jacob’s funeral, 103mm. by 70mm., Joseph, attended by two mourners, all on horseback, leading the coffin in procession.

17. Folio 81r, The victory of King Ninus, 100mm. by 70mm., the king on horseback inspecting the battleground strewn with dead bodies on a hillside before a castle.

18. Folio 88v, Oedipus and the sphinx, 103mm. by 70mm., a knight on horseback meeting a monster with a woman’s face emerging from his lair in the wilderness.

19. Folio 93v, King Adrastus watching a duel, 105mm. by 67mm., the king and his page emerging from the gate of his palace to see two jousting knights in battle in a gallery.

20. Folio 109v, The tiger of Phoedrus, 71mm. by 67mm., a hairy creature being lanced by Adrastus and his soldiers at the gates of Thebes.

21. Folio 115r, The capture of the Athenians, 78mm. by 67mm., prisoners being led into slavery by the Cretans and another being blinded and burned alive.

22. Folio 117r, The battle between the Egyptians and the Scythian Amazons, 95mm. by 68mm., who are avenging their sons with great bloodshed.

23. Folio 117v, The Queen of the Amazons, 90mm. by 67mm., approaching the drawbridge of a castle which she and her companions have founded.

24. Folio 119r, Hercules and Theseus fighting the Amazons, 90mm. by 69mm., knights battling as a flaxen-haired Amazon pierces a man through the heart.

25. Folio 120v, Hercules wrestling with Antheus, 70mm. by 67mm., as their rejected weapons lie on the ground in a forest clearing.

26. Folio 130r, The death of Hercules, 103mm. by 68mm., Achelois, with blood pouring down his white horse, verifying that Hercules is dead, during a battle between the Trojans and the Achaeans.

27. Folio 138v, Queen Penthesilea leading the Amazons to their defence of the Trojans, 67mm. by 66mm.

28. Folio 139r, King Pyrrhus in battle with Queen Penthesilea of the Amazons, 95mm. by 67mm., as their two armies clash in a field before a castle.

29. Folio 142r, The death of Priam, 95mm. by 67mm., the king being killed by Neoptolemus before a gold idol in a temple during the sack and burning of Troy.

30. Folio 145v, The departure of Aeneas, 107mm. by 67mm., sailing ships anchored off the shore as Aeneas and Anchises and their followers discuss their departure to Italy.

31. Folio 153v, The suicide of Dido, 109mm. by 70mm., the queen standing outside her bedroom stabbing herself as the Trojan fleet sails away with Aeneas aboard.

32. Folio 169v, Turnus and Draucis in debate before King Latinus, 87mm. by 68mm., the king on his throne with his courtiers and a sleeping lamb.

33. Folio 182v, Brutus Valerius enters the city of Rome as its new consul, 115mm. by 69mm., an army riding up to a huge turreted city gate.

34. Folio 203v, Holofernes held captive, 93mm. by 69mm., the king tied to a tree and being confronted by warriors brandishing slings, set outside the gates of a city with a group of soldiers behind.

35. Folio 204v, Judith and the Assyrians, 115mm. by 69mm., the girl and her maid being escorted from a city to go to the tent of the waiting Holofernes.

36. Folio 206r, Judith with the head of Holofernes,121mm. by 69mm., holding a sword and giving the head to her maid, as the king’s decapitated body lies in bed in a jewelled tent behind.

37. Folio 217v, Haman led to the gallows, 83mm. by 70mm., under the direction of King Ahasuerus and his courtiers in a cobbled courtyard.

38. Folio 231r, Alexander the Great and the priests, 63mm. by 69mm., the king in golden armour kneeling before several priests with a golden tablet inscribed, “deus abraham deus ysa[ac] et deus”, as Alexander’s troops wait beyond.

39. Folio 232r, The Queen of the Amazons kneeling before Alexander, 90mm. by 70mm., the victorious king mounted on his white horse Bucephalus with his armies behind and corpses in the foreground.

40. Folio 233v, The battle between Alexander and Pyrrhus, 106mm. by 68mm., a great battle with troops mounted on horses and elephants, and Alexander on his white charger Bucephalus.

41. Folio 237r, Alexander and the three-horned beast, 110mm. by 67mm., Alexander in gold armour with his troops outside their camp killing a huge monster which has slain many soldiers.

42. Folio 239v, Alexander and two-headed beast, 107mm. by 85mm., the king and his army riding against the monster with the heads of a giant cockerel and a snarling horse.

43. Folio 245v, The joust of Alexander and Pyrrhus, 78mm. by 70mm., the two kings in the lists as their troops cheer them on.

44. Folio 255r, The elephants of King Pyrrhus, 85mm. by 70mm., at the head of the king’s army.

45. Folio 270v, Roman troops depositing their armour at the Temple of Janus, 89mm. by 70mm., before a bronze figure standing beneath a red canopy.

46. Folio 289v, The battle of the Romans and the Carthaginians, 68mm. by 69mm., with the generals fighting on horseback and an elephant behind with troops in a tower on its back.

47. Folio 290v, Quintus Flaminius and his army, 77mm. by 70mm., the general on a charger caparisoned in gold brocade leading his troops out of a city to meet the Macedonians in battle.

48. Folio 322v, The capture of King Jugurtha by the consul Marius, 97mm. by 67mm., at the conclusion of a long battle.

49. Folio 323r, King Jugurtha led into captivity, 80mm. by 69mm., the king in chains and with fetters on his ankles being led away by Roman troops watched by King Bocchus of Mauretania, in whose house he had taken refuge.

50. Folio 346v, Pompey entering Rome in triumph, 72mm. by 102mm., the general in a golden carriage with his victorious army and several animals including a camel, a donkey and a black dog.

51. Folio 347r,  Julius Caesar conferring with his Roman senators, 120mm. by 70mm., planning the conquest of France, as three Salomonic columns appear to tremble as though in an earthquake.