Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T19:42:05.792Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Aid, Protection, and Social Alliance: The Role of Jewelry in the Margins of the Hours of Catherine of Cleves

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

John R. Decker
John R. Decker*
Affiliation:
Pratt Institute
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article examines five miniatures in the “Hours of Catherine of Cleves” (completed 1442), each containing representations of jewelry in the margins, which operate on two different levels. First, they demonstrate Catherine of Cleves’s adoration of five female saints. I argue that the fictive jewelry may be understood as simulated ex-votos designed to secure the aid and protection of the saints. Second, the images establish strategic alliances with each saint. As a final dimension, I explore how the vitae of these saints may have had resonances for the duchess that help explain the focus placed on them in the manuscript.

Type
Research Article
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 71 , Issue 1 , Spring 2018 , pp. 33 - 76
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 2018

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Algazi, Gadi, Valentin, Groebner, and Bernhard, Jussen, eds. Negotiating the Gift: Pre-Modern Figurations of Exchange. Göttigen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2003.Google Scholar
van Asperen, Hanneke. “A Pilgrim’s Additions: Traces of Pilgrimage in the Belles Heures of Jean de Berry.” In The Limbourg Brothers: Reflections on the Origins and Legacy of Three Illuminators from Nijmegen. ed. Dückers, Rob and Pieter, Roelofs, 85–104. Leiden: Brill, 2009.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beebe, Frank L. A Falconry Manual. Blaine, WA: Hancock House Publishers, 1984.Google Scholar
Berners, Dame Julia. The Book of Saint Albans, Containing Treatises on Hawking, Hunting, and Cote Armour. Facsimile edition, ed. William, Blades. London: Elliot Stock, 1901.Google Scholar
Beuttner, Brigitte. “Past Presents: New Year’s Gifts at the Valois Courts, ca. 1400.” Art Bulletin 83.4 (2001): 598–625.Google Scholar
Bijsterveld, Arnough-Jan. Do ut des: Gift Giving, Memoria, and Conflict Management in the Medieval Low Countries. Hilversum: Verloren, 2007.Google Scholar
Brandenbarg, Ton. Heilige Anna, Grote Moeder: De cultus van de Heilige Moeder Anna en haar familie in de Nederlanden en aangrenzende streken. Nijmegen: Sun, 1992.Google Scholar
Breiding, Dirk H. “The Crossbow of Count Ulrich V of Württemberg.” Metropolitan Museum Journal 44 (2009): 61–87.Google Scholar
Calkins, Robert. “Distribution of Labor: The Illuminators of the Hours of Catherine of Cleves and Their Workshop.” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 69.5 (1979): 1–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carruthers, Mary. The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.Google Scholar
Châtelet, Albert. Early Dutch Painting: Painting in the Northern Netherlands in the Fifteenth Century. New York: Rizzoli, 1981.Google Scholar
Chattaway, Carol M. The Order of the Golden Tree: The Gift-Giving Objectives of Duke Philip the Bold of Burgundy. Turnhout: Brepols, 2006.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Decker, John R. “‘Practical Devotion.’ Apotropaism and the Protection of the Soul.” In The Authority of the Word. ed. Brusati, C. and Melion, Walter, 357–85. Leiden: Brill, 2011.Google Scholar
Decker, John R.. “More Strength for Contemplation: Spiritual Play in the Amsterdam Holy Kinship .” JHNA 8.1 (2016). doi: 10.5092/jhna.2016.8.1.1.Google Scholar
Dilling, W. J. “Girdles: Their Origin and Development, Particularly with Regard to Their Use as Charms in Marriage, Medicine, and Midwifery.” Caledonian Medical Journal 9.8 (1914): 337–57.Google Scholar
Dückers, Rob. “The Hours of Catherine of Cleves as an Object: A Codicological Approach.” In The Hours of Catherine of Cleves: Devotion, Demons and Daily Life in the Fifteenth Century (2009), 74–99.Google Scholar
Eichberger, Dagmar, Legare, Anne-Marie, and Husken, Wim N. M., eds. Women at the Burgundian Court: Presence and Influence. Turnhout: Brepols, 2010.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Field, Richard, ed. Fifteenth Century Woodcuts and Metalcuts from the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1965.Google Scholar
Forsyth, William H. “The Noblest of Sports: Falconry in the Middle Ages.” Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, n.s., 2.9 (1944): 253–59.Google Scholar
Foster-Campbell, Megan H. “Pilgrimage through the Pages: Pilgrim’s Badges in Late Medieval Devotional Manuscripts.” In Push Me, Pull You: Imaginative and Emotional Interaction in Late Medieval and Renaissance Art. ed. Blick, Sarah and Gelfand, Laura D., 1:227–76. Leiden: Brill, 2011.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gelfand, Laura D., and Gibson, Walter S.. “Surrogate Selves: The ‘Rolin Madonna’ and the Late-Medieval Devotional Portrait.” Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art 29.3/4 (2002): 119–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gihr, Rev. Nicholas. “The Saints of the Canon of the Mass.” In Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, 1918, reprinted from The Catholic Voice: http://www.sanctamissa.org/en/spirituality/saints-in-the-roman-canon.pdf.Google Scholar
Hahn, Cynthia. Portrayed on the Heart: Narrative Effect in Pictorial Lives of Saints from the Tenth through the Thirteenth Century. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001.Google Scholar
Hairston, Julia L. “The Economics of Milk and Blood in Alberti’s Libri della famiglia. Maternal versus Wet-Nursing.” In Medieval and Renaissance Lactations: Images, Rhetorics, Practices, ed. Sperling, Jutta G., 187–212. Farnham: Ashgate, 2003.Google Scholar
Hand, Joni. Women, Manuscripts and Identity in Northern Europe, 1350–1550. Farnham: Ashgate, 2013.Google Scholar
Harris, Barbara J. “Space, Time, and the Power of Aristocratic Wives in Yorkist and Early Tudor England, 1450–1550.” In Time, Space, and Women’s Lives in Early Modern Europe. ed. Schutte Anne Jacobson, Kuehn, Thomas, and Menchi, Silvana Seidel, 245–64. Kirsksville, MO: Truman State University Press, 2001.Google Scholar
Herlihy, David. Women, Family and Society in Medieval Europe: Historical Essays, 1978–1991. Oxford: Berghahn Books, 1995.Google Scholar
Hier beghint een boecxke[n] geheten onser liever vrouwen Souter der zaliger magerte marine ende der waardiger moeder ons life heren ihesu cristi. Antewerp: Michiel Hoochstraten, ca. 1500. Leiden Universiteit Bibliotheek, DOUSA Collection, Hs. 1948 G 28.Google Scholar
The Hours of Catherine of Cleves. Morgan Library & Museum, New York. Morgan MS M.917/945.Google Scholar
The Hours of Catherine of Cleves: Devotion, Demons and Daily Life in the Fifteenth Century. Ed. Dückers, Rob and Ruud, Priem. New York: Abrams, 2009.Google Scholar
Hurwich, Judith J. “Marriage Strategy Among the German Nobility, 1400–1699.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 29.2 (1998): 169–95.Google Scholar
Jansen, Rudolf K. “De Arte Venandi cum Avibus.” German Quarterly 48.2 (1975): 187–89.Google Scholar
Joosting, J. G. C. Historia Gelriae, Auctor Anonymo. Arnhem: P. Gouda Quint, 1902.Google Scholar
Knippenberg, W. H. Th. Devotionalia: Religious voorwerpen it het katholieke leven. 2nd ed. 2 vols. Eindhoven: Bura Books, 1985.Google Scholar
Koldeweij, A. M. (Joos). “Pilgrim Badges Painted in Manuscripts: A North Netherlandish Example.” In Masters and Miniatures: Proceedings of the Congress on Medieval Manuscript Illumination in the Northern Netherlands, Utrecht, 10–13 December, 1989. ed. Koert van der Horst and Johann-Christian Klamt, 211–18. Doornspijk: Davaco, 1991.Google Scholar
Lane, Barbara. “An Immaculist Cycle in the Hours of Catherine of Cleves.” Oud Holland 87.4 (1973a): 177–204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lane, Barbara. “The ‘Symbolic Crucifixion’ in the Hours of Catherine of Cleves.” Oud Holland 87.1 (1973b): 4–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Larson, Katherine R. Early Modern Women in Conversation. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lightbown, Ronald W. Medieval European Jewellery with a Catalogue of the Collection in the Victoria & Albert Museum. London: Victoria & Albert Museum, 1992.Google Scholar
Lytle, Guy. “Friendship, Art and Society in Renaissance Italy.” In Patronage, Art, and Society in Renaissance Italy. ed. Kent, F. W. and Patricia, Simons, 47–61. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987.Google Scholar
Maniura, Robert. “Ex Votos, Art and Pious Performance.” Oxford Art Journal 32.3 (2009): 409, 411–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marrow, James H. Pictorial Invention in Netherlandish Manuscript Illumination of the Late Middle Ages: The Play of Illusion and Meaning. Leuven: Peeters, 2005.Google Scholar
Marrow, James H.. “Multitudo et Varietas: The Hours of Catherine of Cleves.” In The Hours of Catherine of Cleves: Devotion, Demons and Daily Life in the Fifteenth Century (2009), 18–43.Google Scholar
Mauss, Marcel. The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies. Trans. Halls, W. D.. New York: W. W. Norton, 1990.Google Scholar
Migiel, Marilyn, and Juliana, Schiesari, eds. Refiguring Woman: Perspectives on Gender and the Italian Renaissance. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991.Google Scholar
Muir, Carolyn Diskant. “St. Agnes of Rome as a Bride of Christ: A Northern European Phenomenon, c. 1450–1520.” Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art 31.3 (2004–05): 135–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nijsten, Gerard. In the Shadow of Burgundy: The Court of Guelders in the Late Middle Ages. Trans. Tanks, Guest. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Oostrom, Fritz van, ed. Voorbeeldig vertellen: Middelnederlandse exempelen. Amsterdam: Querido Publishers, 1985.Google Scholar
Plummer, John. The Hours of Catherine of Cleves: Introduction and Commentaries. 1966. Reprint, New York: George Braziller, 2002.Google Scholar
Rothstein, Bret. “Making Trouble: Strange Wooden Objects in the Pursuit of Difficulty ca. 1596.” Journal of Early Modern Cultural Studies 13.1 (2013): 96–129.Google Scholar
Rothstein, Bret. “Visual Difficulty as a Cultural System.” RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics 65/66 (2014/15): 332–47.Google Scholar
Rudy, Kathryn. “Sewing the Body of Christ: Eucharist Wafer Souvenirs Stitched into Fifteenth-Century Manuscripts, Primarily in the Netherlands.” Journal of the Historians of Netherlandish Art 8.1 (2016).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sand, Alexa. “Vision, Devotion, and Difficulty in the Psalter Hours ‘Of Yolanda of Soissons.’” Art Bulletin 87.1 (2005): 6–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schutte, Anne Jacobson, Thomas Kuehn, and Menchi, Silvana Seidel, eds. Time, Space, and Women’s Lives in Early Modern Europe. Kirsksville, MO: Truman State University Press, 2001.Google Scholar
Simson, Otto von. “ Compassio and Co-Redemptio in Roger van der Weyden’s Descent from the Cross.” Art Bulletin 35.1 (1953): 9–16.Google Scholar
Skemer, Don C. Binding Words: Textual Amulets in the Middle Ages. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006.Google Scholar
Stafford, Pauline. Gender, Family and the Legitimation of Power: England from the Ninth to Early Twelfth Century. Farnham: Ashgate, 2006.Google Scholar
Stowell, Steven. “Reading the Margins of the Hours of Catherine of Cleves.” Word and Image 24 (2008): 378–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strocchia, Sharon. Death and Ritual in Renaissance Florence. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992.Google Scholar
Thissen, Bert. “Catherine of Cleves (1417–1476), Duchess of Guelders and Countess of Zutphen: A Biographical Sketch.” In The Hours of Catherine of Cleves: Devotion, Demons and Daily Life in the Fifteenth Century (2009), 100–25.Google Scholar
Van Alphen Hours. Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. MS W 782.Google Scholar
Velde, Hugo van der. The Donor’s Image: Gerard Loyet and the Votive Portrait of Charles the Bold. Turnhout: Brepols, 2000.Google Scholar
Verhoeven, Gerrelt. Devotie en negotie: Delft also bedevaartsplaats in de late middeleeuwen. Amsterdam: VU Uitgeverij, 1992.Google Scholar
Voelkle, William. “Coins, Mussels, and a Crab in the Hours of Catherine of Cleves.” In Tributes in Honor of James H. Marrow: Studies in Painting and Manuscript Illumination of the Late Middle Ages and Northern Renaissance. ed. Jeffrey, Hamburger and Anne, Korteweg, 563–65. London: Harvey Miller, 2006.Google Scholar
Voragine, Jacobus de. The Golden Legend: Readings on the Saints. Trans. William Granger Ryan. 2 vols. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993.Google Scholar
Ward, Jennifer. Women in Medieval Europe, 1200–1500. London: Longman, 2002.Google Scholar
Watt, Diane. Medieval Women in Their Communities. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Winston-Allen, Anne. Stories of the Rose: The Making of the Rosary in the Middle Ages. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Wood, Christopher. “The Votive Scenario.” RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics 59.60 (2011): 206–27.Google Scholar
Young, Bonnie. “The Lady Honor and Her Children.” Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 21.10 (1963): 340–48 .Google Scholar