Anna C. Siebach and Dr. Jesse Hurlbut, Department of French and Italian
At the beginning of the thirteenth century, around 1220-30, Blanche of Castille commissioned a Bible the likes of which had never before been produced. This bible, now known as Vienna 2554, consisted of four verses per page, each one linked with an exegetical gloss of the biblical text. Down the center of the page ran two columns of medallions, each one representing the text—whether biblical verse or gloss—placed next to it. With this manuscript began the royal tradition of the Bibles moralisées, a group of seven existing manuscripts, all based on the same theological and practical design.
From the outset, these bibles served more than a devotionally instructive purpose. The bibles themselves are not theological innovations. They make use of the biblical exegesis popular at the time of their creation, but occasionally have incorrect rendering of the scripture, sometimes provide a gloss which does not match the verse which it purports to explain, and occasionally—one might almost say not infrequently—the pictures do not match the text. Adding to these facts the knowledge that the bibles were very rarely displayed to anyone outside the royal family, and that the books show very little sign of wear at all, we begin to realize that this collection of bibles served for the kings and queens who possessed them a symbolic function, providing a material canvas which, by virtue of its cultural and theological significance as the Word of God, might be manipulated in order to strengthen and portray the place of the rulers of France in both a spiritual and secular sphere.
Blanche’s initial bible, its verses and glosses in Latin, placed the greatest emphasis on the images, arranging the page in such a way that the eye was drawn from text to image, text to image. However, this arrangement was changed with subsequent bibles, beginning with the one given to Louis VIII (Vienna 1179), which separated the previously coupled columns of images, placing them rather on the right side of their accompanying text. Though the initial emphasis on the visual representation was shifted, it mattered little, as Vienna 1179 was continuing a royal tradition that had begun with Vienna 2554. Subsequent bibles were produced for Louis IX and Alfonso X (Toledo), Louis IX and Marguerite of Provence (Oxford-Paris-London), possibly Philippe IV—Philip the Fair (Add. 18719), Jean II le Bon (BN francais 167), and Charles VIII (BN francais 166).
Interestingly, the later bibles (francais 167 and 166) no longer contain the same degree of explicit imperial Christomimesis so prevalent in the earlier Bibles, which will be discussed later. However, the very existence of these fifteenth century texts, illustrated by the most important of manuscript artists of the period, including the Limbourg brothers, testifies of the immense symbolic political importance that the Bibles moralisées had acquired. Indeed, the Toledo Bible is referred to as “the Bible of Kings” in medieval and modern texts. The connection between spiritual and temporal rulers, necessarily made explicit in the earlier manuscripts in order to lay the symbolic foundation of the role played by the bibles, has become culturally assimilated by the time of the creation of the later ones.
In order to complete my project, I traveled to France with my mentor, Dr. Jesse Hurlbut. While there, I had the opportunity to view an original Bible moralisée, and to examine reproductions of the bibles held at the Bibliothèque nationale. My examinations at the BN led to the discovery of a particularly arresting miniature found in BN latin 11560; in this particular illustration, King David is portrayed as being crucified, complete with explicit Christological symbolism. This particular illumination is but one example of the manner in which the creators of the Bibles moralisées attempted to meld theology and politics in an effort to produce a Bible which not only emphasized the divine rights and responsibilities of kings, but also taught those kings how they should rule by providing explicit contemporary readings of Biblical passages.
These images of the divinization of various Evangelists, saints, and even kings served a soteriological function, as every man was an image or a mirror of divine reality. Thus, through the pictorial representations in the medallions, coupled specifically with the biblical text, the king is able to visualize himself as occupying a temporal space with eternal consequences. He is the current embodiment of Christ’s rule over men, divinely ordained with specific responsibilities.
Just as Christ Logos became flesh, the fleshy king has, both in his depiction in the manuscript and now symbolically through his destiny as priest and leader of the kingdom of God on earth, become Logos. Though nobody viewed the Bibles moralisées save their creators, royal consumers, and privileged observers, they did not need to. The kings and queens of France who ordered these extraordinary books believed in their sacred destiny, and ensured that the image of Christ imprinted upon them as a result of both their humanity and, more importantly, their position as spiritual and political ruler, was reinforced and enhanced until their own flesh become the Word. The privileged position occupied by the Bible not only as text, and thus authority, but as the ultimate text, ensured that the Bibles moralisées from the outset fulfilled a symbolic cultural function. The purpose of that project was to examine that particular function; through careful examination of the manuscripts, I was able to discover images and text which clarified and emphasized particular aspects of kingship, the nature of man, and the cultural and theological aspects of representation and interpretation.
Due to my extraordinary opportunity to study not only the Bibles moralisées but also the philosophy and theology of medieval representations, under the tutelage of Dr. Hurlbut, I was able to present my findings at the International Medieval Congress in May 2004. I have continued my work with medieval manuscripts, and am returning to France during the summer of 2005 in order to examine allegorical representation in another medieval poetry manuscript.