Profane Illuminations, Secular Illusions: Manuscripts in Late Medieval Courtly Society

Abstract

For the first time since antiquity, images grounded in secular contexts and contents emerged in the late Middle Ages as a major cultural fact. This article concerns some of the functions of secular miniatures in a courtly context, as suggested by examples of ca. 1400 for King Charles V of France and his brothers. The consumption and collecting of these manuscripts and the creation of secular iconographies and pictorial systems are viewed as intertwined strategies generating models of knowledge, pleasure, and power at variance with the ones established by the clerical tradition.

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Brigitte Buettner

Brigitte Buettner received her Ph.D. from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris. She has published in European journals, including Médiévales and Studi sul Boccaccio, and is presently at work on a book on the first manuscript of the Clères femmes [Smith College, Northampton, Mass. 01063].