Jason's Story: Artistic
Transmission and Public Performance in Burgundian
Manuscript Illumination
Lisa Deam,
Valparaiso University
In one of the most
striking miniatures in the magisterial chronicle,
the Fleur des Histoires (Brussels, Royal Library,
ms. 9231-9232), Jason battles the fire-breathing bulls
and defeats the dragon before finally conquering the
Golden Fleece (fol. 109v). Jason's presence in this
manuscript is not surprising. The Fleur des Histoires was owned and probably made for Duke Philip the
Good himself, who named his chivalric order after
the Greek hero and took him as a crusading model.
It is more surprising, however, to find that Jason's
story suggests a new way of viewing the function and
audience of secular manuscript imagery in the Burgundian
Netherlands.
It is often assumed
that manuscript illumination forms a private treasury
of imagery, devotional or instructive, for its privileged
owner. Yet the Fleur's Jason miniature recalls,
and perhaps used as sources, the most large-scale
and public of media: its multi-scene composition resembles
not only tapestry design, but also the Jason entremets
performed at the Feast of the Pheasant in 1459.
The implications of these 'sources' are wide-ranging.
In addition to raising questions of artistic transmission,
such sources suggest that the Fleur des Histoires engenders a public rather than a private mode
of viewing. Like the multiple scenes in tapestries
and performances, its expansive miniatures were meant
to be collectively viewed, perhaps alongside a public
reading of its text. The Fleur's Jason miniature
may have even recalled to courtly viewers the performance
at Lille and exacted a similar, publicly declared
crusading zeal.
The Fleur des Histoires thus alters our conception of Burgundian manuscript
imagery. Rather than an intimate pictorial resource
for Philip the Good, the Fleur was a repository
of popular stories whose imagery recalled and enhanced
the forms of public art. What better way for a ducal
chronicle to reinforce the memory of the courtA-s most
important stories?
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