Queenship, Piety, and Maternity in Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts

Ingeborg Psalter

This book belonged Ingeborg of Denmark, whose husband, Phillip II of France, attempted to divorce her almost immediately after their marriage in 1193. Their relationship was tumultuous up until Phillip's death in 1213, and Ingeborg never provided him with an heir. The manuscript itself contains a calendar of the Catholic feast days, a series of full-page illuminations (painted decorations or illustrations) featuring scenes from both the Hebrew and Greek Bibles, [1] and the text of the psalms. Psalters became increasingly common in the high and late Middle Ages, as a way for the laity to practice religion outside the church.

On this page, Christ, having risen from the tomb, shows St. Thomas his wounds to expel his doubt over the resurrection. Thomas reaches out as if to touch the opening; here, we get a sense of the centrality of the body in medieval Christianity. Theologians in the 12th century likened the wound in Christ's side to the womb, a holy opening in which one might find spiritual refuge. The Cistercian order in particular favored this maternal imagery as a way to emphasize the humanity and tenderness of Christ. [2] The image of the side wound would become especially prevalent in the later Middle Ages, in books meant for the laity, but also in the writings of nuns. [3] In the Ingeborg Psalter, the illuminator has rendered the wound with black pigments that create a sense of depth, furthering the idea of the wound as a space for the faithful to enter. Christ becomes a mother figure, to whom Ingeborg might have related as a woman; yet the insistence upon the sacredness of maternity, present throughout the manuscript, must also have amplified the pressure she felt to produce an heir for Phillip.

1. I use the terms "Hebrew Bible" and "Greek Bible" where others might use "Old Testament" and "New Testament." I avoid the latter terms because they reinforce a Christian-centric worldview, in which Chritianity is "new" and Judaism is "old."

2. Bynum, Caroline Walker. “Jesus as Mother and Abbot as Mother: Some Themes in Twelfth-Century Cistercian Writing,” in Jesus as Mother: Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1982.

3. Olson, Vibeke. “Penetrating the Void: Picturing the Wound in Christ’s Side as a Performative Space,” in Wounds and Wound Repair in Medieval Culture, edited by Larissa Tracy, 311-339. Leiden: BRILL, 2015.

Photograph: The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Hours of Jeanne d'Évreux

Jeanne d'Evreux married her cousin, Charles IV of France, in 1324, when she was 14 years old. Scholars have suggested that this book of hours was Charles' wedding gift to his new wife. Books of hours, like psalters, belonged to laypeople and allowed them to perform spirituality outside the church; this book thus served as a devotional tool, but perhaps also as part of Jeanne's education as a new queen. [1]

Jeanne's book of hours contains a calendar, the Hours of the Virgin -- a set of prayers that the devotee offered to the Virgin Mary eight times a day [2] -- the Hours of Saint Louis, the Seven Penitential Psalms, and the Litany. Most of the elements in the Hours of Jeanne d'Evreux are typical of the genre, but as private devotional texts, books of hours' contents often varied greatly from owner to owner. The presence of the Hours of Saint Louis makes the Jeanne's book unique; Louis was her and her husband's shared ancestor, as well as an example of charitable behavior for Jeanne to follow, as illuminations show him feeding the hungry and caring for the sick. [3]

This Crucifixion scene accompanies text from the Hours of the Virgin, and is juxtaposed by the Adoration of the Magi on the next page. This image is much busier than those in the other manuscripts, with a greater sense of depth and a reserved use of color. Figures frame and bring our attention to the image of Christ on the cross, where red pigment brings his gushing wounds to life. The Hours of Jeanne d'Evreux also stands apart from the other manuscripts in terms of scale -- this tiny volume fits comfortably in the palm of the hand, and Kathleen Clare Lang has suggested that the manuscript's size attests to the personal and intimate experience of its devotional use. [4]

1. Holladay, Joan A. “The Education of Jeanne D'Evreux: Personal Piety and Dynastic Salvation in Her Book of Hours at the Cloisters.” Art History 17, no. 4 (December 1994): 585–611. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8365.1994.tb00597.x. pp. 601-603.

2. See Wieck, Roger S. "Hours of the Virgin" in Painted Prayers: the Book of Hours in Medieval and Renaissance Art. New York: George Braziller, 1997: 51-85.

3. Holladay, 598.

4. "The Hours of Jeanne d'Evrex: An Analysis of Size." MA diss. San Jose State University, 2001.