Tea at Trianon: The Medieval Books of Hours

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Tuesday, September 7, 2021

The Medieval Books of Hours

From Historia:

Medieval Books of Hours were far more than devotional aids; as beautiful, cherished objects they were a way for their creators and owners to experiment with miniature art and ideas, often carrying hidden messages. And, being made for private use, they had a special significance for women, the bestselling author Elizabeth Buchan explains. Two miniature paintings are at the centre of the mystery that drives her new novel, Two Women in Rome.

This boke is myne, Eleanor Worcester
An I yt lose, and yow yt fynd
I pray yow hartely to be so kynd
That yow well take a letil payne
To se my boke is brothe home agayne
(Inscription in a Book of Hours belonging to the Duchess of Worcester, c1440)

The figure of a naked woman bathing confronts the viewer full on. Her skin is pearly white, the hair streaming down her back is a golden abundance, the water shimmers silver. This is Bathsheba Bathing, one of the miniatures from Jean Bourdichon’s The Hours of Louis XII. (Read more.)