Courtly images far from court: The family Saint-Floret, representation, and romance

318 Pages·2003·25.284 MB·English

by  Amanda Rosenstock Luyster

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
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have examined a thesis entitled
Courtly Art far from Court: The Family
Saint-Floret, Representation, and Romance
presented by Amanda Luyster
candidate for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and hereby
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Courtly Images Far from Court:
The Family Saint-Floret, Representation, and Romance
A thesis presented
by
Amanda Rosenstock Luyster
to
The Department of History of Art and Architecture
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
in the subject of
History of Art and Architecture
Harvard University
Cambridge, Massachusetts
May 2003
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
UMI Number: 3091628
Copyright 2003 by
Luyster, Amanda Rosenstock
All rights reserved.
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iii
Thesis Advisors: Amanda R. Luyster
Dr. Jeffrey Hamburger, Harvard University
Dr. David Roxburgh, Harvard University
Dr. Virginie Greene, Harvard University
Abstract
Courtly Images Far from Court:
The Family Saint-Floret, Representation, and Romance
The murals at the chateau of Saint-Floret (France, Auvergne, c. 1350) provide the most
extensive depiction of romance in surviving French wall-painting. They are also, most
unusually, accompanied by substantial extracts of painted text. Life-size images of jousts
and lovers' meetings cover the walls of a large hall, depicting a romance of Tristan and
Iseut, two of the most famous doomed lovers in western culture. Only a few pages have
been dedicated to these wall-paintings in published scholarship, sometimes naming the
paintings "courtly" (while ignoring the apparent contradiction of their rural surroundings)
and largely devoted to identifying the text to which the images relate.
My argument addresses the paintings' role in courtly culture and their use of
visual rhetoric. In particular, I argue that the chateau and its wall-paintings provide
evidence of a considered relation to at least three traditions of courtliness. By means of
the style and form of the narrative which they present, the murals visually negotiate
between the courtly visual culture of Paris, that of papal Avignon, and the locally-rooted
troubadour society in southern France. The murals, therefore, provide evidence not only
of sophisticated cultural production in areas outside the heavily-studied "centers" of the
Middle Ages, but also of the strength of various strands of courtly tradition.
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What emerges most pointedly from the analysis is the vital social role of the
paintings, the realization that the narrative images at Saint-Floret were not “mere
decoration”; they mattered. They create an arena in which certain topics had already
been put into play, and they act as an invitation to enter a dialogue. The viewing
experience at Saint-Floret shapes viewers' consciousness of being part of a social group
and simultaneously allows the opportunity for monologue, dialogue and performance.
The paintings at Saint-Floret highlight the role of romance material in constructing and
presenting an image of a self - particularly a noble self - in the Middle Ages. They allow
their patron to show himself as a cosmopolitan member of the nobility, accomplished in
the courtly codes and the material of romance, to the extent that he could “author” a
visual text.
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V
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION____________________________________________________1
The Wall-Paintings at Saint-Floret l
Arthurian Art: The Study of Text and Image 4
“Reading” the Paintings: Courtly Skills and Courtly Knowledge 21
The Social Role of Courtly Narrative at Saint-Floret 27
CHAPTER 2 THE CHATEAU AND LORDS OF SAINT-FLORET____________________36
Overview of the Chateau 36
The Room of the Paintings 43
The Courtyard and Inner Rooms 51
The Village Below 55
L’Eglise du Chastel 59
Troubadours and the Family Saint-Floret 66
Trade and Neighbors: The Wider World 76
CHAPTER 3 A SENSE OF PLACE. A SENSE OF STYLE___________________________ 86
The Use of Style and the Court Style 86
Style at Saint-Floret 90
Fourteenth-Century French Traditions 96
Influence from the South: Avignon and Italy 108
Saint-Floret: A Place In Between 127
CHAPTER 4 THE ROMANCE PAINTINGS AND THE MEL1ADUS_________________134
The Paintings, the Inscriptions, and Their Relation to Literature 135
The Meliadus and its Illustrations: A Fragmentary Tradition 162
Proposed Reconstruction of the Cycle at Saint-Floret 171
CHAPTER 5 VISUAL NARRATIVE_____________________________________________ 185
NARRATIVE STRUCTURE AT SAINT-FLORET 185
The Role of the Inscriptions 191
Movement through Time and Space 196
The Visual Rhetoric of Wall-Painting: Framing and Illusion 199
CHAPTER 6 AFTERMATH: WAR AND THE DUC DE BERRY____________________223
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War and Plague: The Saint-Floret and the “Crisis” 1348-1392 223
JEHAN DE JEHAN AND THE Due DE BERRY 230
CHAPTER 7 CONCLUSION____________________________________________________ 236
APPENDIX A. A HISTORY OF THE FAMILY SAINT-FLORET___________________241
APPENDIX B. INDIVIDUAL RECORDS AND SOURCES_________________________ 252
APPENDIX C. THE PAINTINGS: DISCOVERY AND RESTORATION_____________286
Works Cited 292
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List of Figures
All figures not otherwise credited are copyright of the author.
The following copyrighted images are used with permission:
© Art Resource: Art Resource, New York.
© Bibliotheque Nationale: Bibliotheque Nationale de Paris.
© British Library: British Library, London.
© Choplain-Maston: Inventaire General, AD AGP, Clermont-Ferrand. Cliche R.
Choplain - R. Maston.
© Getty: J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.
© The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cloisters Collection.
Figure 2.1. View of the chateau Saint-Floret from across the river (looking north).....................37
Figure 2.2. Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, Ms. fr. 22297, Fol. 323. L'Armorial d'Auvergne,
BOURBONNAIS ET FOREZ, BY GUILLAUME REVEL. DRAWING OF SAINT-FLORET. FRENCH, C. 1450. ©
Bibliotheque Nationale............................................................................................................................................................37
Figure 2.3. Plan of the castral complex at Saint-Floret. Drawn after drawings and plans
from the Saint-Floret file in the Mediatheque du Patrimoine, Paris..................................................38
Figure 2.4. Cutaway view of the second corps-de-logis at Saint-Floret. Drawn after Serre
1975............................................................................................................................................................................................................42
Figure 2.5. Exterior of the chateau Saint-Floret. Entrance from the village to the salle at
LOWER RIGHT; ENTRANCE TO THE UPPER COURTYARD THROUGH THE GAP TO THE UPPER LEFT................44
Figure 2.6. North wall. Interior of the chateau Saint-Floret............................................................................44
Figure 2.7. West wall and northwest corner. Note sculpted consoles. Interior of the
chAteau Saint-Floret................................................................................................................................................................45
Figure 2.8. East wall, southeast corner, and south wall. Interior of the chateau Saint-
Floret......................................................................................................................................................................................................45
Figure 2.9. Inscription covering stones incorporated in the framing of the window. East wall,
NORTHEAST CORNER. INTERIOR OF THE CHATEAU SAINT-FLORET...........................................................................47
Figure 2.10. Sculpted console; a crowned woman. Interior of the chateau Saint-Floret...........47
Figure 2.11. Rib vault. Interior of the chAteau Saint-Floret..............................................................................48
Figure 2.12. Exterior of the Eglise du Chastel, Saint-Floret.................................................................................61
Figure 2.13. The Virgin, John the Baptist, and the family of Jehan de Jehan. North chapel,
Eglise du Chastel, Saint-Floret..........................................................................................................................................61
Figure 2.14. John the Baptist presenting Jehan de Jehan and Isabeau de Chaslus. North chapel,
Eglise du Chastel, Saint-Floret..........................................................................................................................................62
Figure 2.15. The daughters of Jehan de Jehan and Isabeau de Chaslus. North chapel, Eglise du
Chastel, Saint-Floret.................................................................................................................................................................62
Figure2.16. Thesonsof Jehan de Jehan and Isabeau de Chaslus. North chapel, Eglise du
Chastel, Saint-Floret.................................................................................................................................................................63
Figure 2.17. Map of the environs of Saint-Floret (Auvergne)...............................................................................78
Figure 2.18. Local area around Saint-Floret.....................................................................................................................81
FIGURE 3.1. NORTH WALL. INTERIOR, CHATEAU SAINT-FLORET..........................................................................................93
Figure 3.2. View toward upper register, left side, north wall. Fragments of a horse
(Adventure in the Perilous Forest). Interior, chateau Saint-Floret................................................93
Figure 3.3. London, British Library, Add. 12228, fol. 187v-188r. Meliadus and Mark in a
tournament. Meliadus. Neapolitan, 1352-62. ©BritishLibrary............................................................97
Figure 3.4. New York, The Cloisters, The Hours of Jeanne d'Evreux. The Annunciation.
Executedc. 1325-28 by Jean Pucelle. The Cloisters Collection, 1954(54.1.2f. 16). ©The
Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cloisters Collection............................................................................97
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