Anne D. Hedeman

    In the Middle Ages the French royal coronation was an important ritual which transformed the royal person in significant ways.2 The drama and importance of this public ceremony were clearly expressed in treatises about the coronation, and the ceremony itself was commemorated in numerous copies of the ordines, most frequently in pontificals.3 Despite the importance of visual symbols to the French ceremony, detailed pictorial representations of the coronation are rare, perhaps because independent coronation books were made after the ceremony for a small, private audience.4 Only three or four illustrated French coronation books survive from before 1400.5 One of the earliest of these is a French manuscript from the early fourteenth century in the Rare Book and Special Collections Library of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The interaction of pictures and text in this ordo restructures history in order to shape a particular memory for the manuscript's patron.

    The University of Illinois's Coronation Book contains the text of the last Capetian ordo, the ceremonial drafted late in the reign of Saint Louis that may have been used for coronations from Philip III's accession in 1270 through Charles V's in 1364.6 Though fragmentary, the manuscript is densely illuminated. As the Appendix to this paper makes dear, its twenty-three folios are filled with over thirty historiated initials that include nineteen narrative scenes, three busts of the king or queen, and nine coats-of-arms.7

    Even though the nineteen narrative scenes are schematic in composition and rough in style, they bear a sophisticated relationship to their text. Most of them illustrate the extensive rubrics which constitute a directory for the actions of the participants in the ceremony.8 For example the first surviving scene in the manuscript (fol. 1) represents the bareheaded king humbly placing his sword on the altar as the archbishop and clerics watch. This initial "G" begins the rubric which describes the action pictured in it; the "king should offer it on the altar.... Subsequent historiated initials trace the archbishop's and king's actions as the archbishop prepares the chrism, sings the Kyrie, anoints the king, presents him with his ring, his scepter, and his main-de-justice, crowns the new monarch, kisses him in homage, says mass, and gives the king communion.

    The queen's ceremony follows the king's and is complete. Its text mirrors the ceremonial of the king, and its illustrations, which represent events described in the rubrics, reinforce the parallelism between the king and queen established by the ceremony. Pictures represent the queen brought before the bishop, anointed, presented with her scepter and verge and her ring, crowned, and acclaimed by matrons and barons. At the same time, details within the text that are reinforced in the images of her ceremony differentiate the queen's role from the king's. Visual distinctions reinforce symbolic differences between the queen's and king's ceremonies that are explicitly stated in the rubrics. Thus for example
(fig. 1)
when the queen receives her scepter and verge, the verge is smaller and of different form than the king's main-de-justice
(fig. 2)
in conformity with the rubric "After the prayer the archbishop gives the queen a smaller scepter of a different kind than the king's and a rod similar to the king's."10

    Although the directory and contemporary practice are the primary sources for the iconography of the narrative initials, the placement of certain initials at the beginnings of prayers rather than in the rubrics draws special attention to central moments of the ceremony. For instance the "K" which begins the "Kyrie eleison" (fol. 2), the largest initial in the book, is historiated with a scene in which the bareheaded king kneels as the archbishop and clergy declaim the litany. Although the rubric directly preceding the initial describes the events represented in this initial, the initial does not introduce the rubric but marks the first word of the litany. Aspects of the initial's composition reinforce the importance of the text that it begins. "Kyrie," the first word of the litany, is inscribed on the painted book placed on the podium in the initial. The archbishop indicates the painted book with a gesture that points beyond it to the actual text of the "Kyrie eleison" in the manuscript which the reader holds. The play of word and image here seems deliberately designed to make readers of the ordo feel like active participants in the coronation commemorated in its pages; readers would say the Kyrie as though they were present with the archbishop and clerics.

    Subsequent images reinforce in a simpler way the experience of the reader as witness to the ceremony depicted in the initials. The king's unction, the presentation of the insignia to the king and to the queen, and their coronations each appear within the historiated initials that begin specific prayers addressed by the archbishop to the king or queen at the moment that their unction, presentation, or coronation takes place. These images encapsulate the gestures made by the central figures of the archbishop and the king or queen when the words of which the initials are a part--"I anoint you ...," "Accept this scepter ...," or "I crown you ..."--were intoned.

    The structure of the cycle as a whole seems to center around these historiated initials that make the reader a witness of the coronation. Both the layout of the ordo and the pattern of distribution of historiated and non-narrative initials create clusters of images. Demarcated by extensive rubrics within the text, the clusters are loosely framed by a mixture of narrative initials placed within the rubric and non-narrative initials representing busts of royal figures or coats of arms. This sequence of illustrated textual units isolates central portions of the ordo. In the king's ceremony the units consist of the consecration of the chrism with prayers for mercy and protection, the unction of the king, his investment with the royal insignia and coronation, and the mass. In the queen's ceremony they include her investment with the royal insignia and her coronation and homage.

    An examination of the illustrations of the section of the ordo clustered around the king's unction exemplifies how differently these framing images relate to their texts. This portion begins with an extensive rubric which describes the events which follow. The rubric states: "Here he [the king] is anointed with chrism and oil sent from the sky previously mixed on a paten by the archbishop as was described above. Thus the archbishop anoints him first on the top of the head with the said unction, second on the chest, third between the shoulders, fourth on each shoulder, fifth on the bending of each arm, and says with each unction ..."11 This rubric is followed by the archbishop's prayer when he anoints the king, an antiphon, and three subsequent prayers. Initials that introduce the rubric (fol. 7v), the antiphon, and the final prayer bear a different relationship to their texts than the central figure of unction does. While the central image (fol. 8) is closely tied to the prayer it begins, the initial to the rubric preceding this prayer celebrates the heavenly origin of the holy chrism, sent by God for the baptism of Clovis in the fifth century in order to distinguish coronations of French kings from all others. The initials to the antiphon (fol. 8) and third prayer (fol. 10) that follow the central image are totally independent of their texts. Although the antiphon refers to Old Testament antecedents for the coronation and the prayer expresses the hope that the Holy Spirit would descend upon the newly anointed king so that he would deserve to reign eternally with Christ, the initials of these prayers contain a pair of women's coats-of-arms (those of Jeanne d'Evreux and of a woman of the Evreux family married to a man from the house of Laval) which have absolutely nothing to do with the content of the prayers they accompany.12 This particular configuration of armorial bearings recurs four times in the manuscript.

    Comparison between corresponding events in the king's and queen's coronation provide clues as to the original patron of the manuscript. Such a comparison suggests that the ordo may have been made for the as-yet-unidentified woman from the house of Evreux whose arms appear paired with the queen's in the manuscript. A comparison of the scenes of homage after the coronation for the king
(fig. 3)
and the queen
(fig. 4)
reveals the special importance given a woman in the queen's ceremony. The picture illustrating the rubric for the king's homage establishes a precedent for letting the actions of the most important participant in the coronation represent the actions of the group--a means of structuring compositions used throughout the manuscript. Thus, although the rubric speaks of the activities of the archbishop and of the other peers: "Then the archbishop with the peers who support the crown lead the king to the chair which is adorned with coverings of silk and they must put him in his seat which should be so high that all might see him. And then the archbishop should as a sign of reverence kiss the king as he sits in his seat. And after him the bishop and the lay peers who support the crown say the same ..."13 the image includes only the scene of the archbishop's kiss, the homage of the figure whose activities are described first in the rubric's text. The queen's acclamation is represented differently. Its rubric: "After this prayer the barons who support her crown lead her to her platform where she should be seated in the seat decorated for her. And the barons and the most noble ladies should be around [her],"14 is illustrated by an initial which represents the queen enthroned in dialogue with a woman, rather than with one of the barons described first by the rubric. The importance of this anonymous woman in defiance of the pattern established throughout the manuscript suggests that she was an important protagonist, at least to the person who commissioned this ordo. The pairing of an armorial bearing for a woman from the house of Evreux with that of the newly-crowned queen strengthens this interpretation.

    Unfortunately, the arms of this anonymous woman from the house of Evreux remain problematic. There is no record of a marriage between those two houses.15 However, visual inspection of the coats-of-arms suggests that in three cases (fols. 10, 14, and 18v) the Laval sides of the arms may have been repainted, and in one case (fol. 20) the impaled arms may have been painted over a flourished initial.16 If this were the case, then the Laval coat-of-arms may well have masked the Brabant or Boulogne arms of one of Jeanne d'Evreux's sisters who participated in the wedding: the Duchess of Brabant and the Countess of Boulogne.

    A recent hypothesis offers a possible solution to the problem of this fabricated coat-of-arms.17 In 1464 a branch of the Laval family-the first branch to be descended from the house of Evreux--was authorized to change its arms and add a quarter of Evreux to their traditional heraldry.18 One prominent member of this family was Pierre de Laval, archbishop of Reims from 1473 to 1493. As Archbishop of Reims and descendent of Jeanne d'Evreux, Pierre had two reasons to be interested in the ordo, which he may well have inherited If this were the case, then the heraldic repainting in this manuscript may be a reference to Pierre's new arms.19 The earliest provenance for the ordo lends support to this theory because the manuscript's previous nineteenth-century binding had a label which stated that the manuscript was pillaged from the cathedral of Reims.20

    This consideration of the relationship between text and image in the ordo ad consecrandum demonstrates how carefully structured its pictorial cycle was, despite the provincial qualities of its artistic style and the small scale of its illustrations. Tiny narrative initials scattered throughout the manuscript derive their iconography from the text's rubrics and from extra-textual sources: embellishments to the ritual that persisted at least until the coronation of Charles V in 1364. Non-narrative pictures demarcate textual units which center on prayers whose illustrations attempt to make the reader be present again at key moments of the ceremony. Certain initials of each type--most notably the non-narrative initials with armorial bearings and the initial representing the acclamation of the queen by a lady--even point beyond the text to hint at female patronage for the manuscript by a woman related to the queen who may have participated in the coronation.

    The sophistication of this ordo's pictorial cycle and the specificity of its iconographical content suggest that the manuscript does not merely commemorate Jeanne d' Evreux's coronation. Historical events support this interpretation because the sequential coronations of Charles IV and Jeanne d'Evreux that this manuscript presents never took place. Charles, who had been crowned in 1322 with his first wife, simply attended the ceremony when Jeanne d'Evreux, his third wife, was crowned in 1326.21 Nonetheless, by showing Charles IV's and Jeanne d'Evreux's coronations in sequence, the pictures and text of the ordo imply that they happened on the same day. This juxtaposition shapes a memory that glorifies the queen by associating her coronation with the king's. Future readers of the book would naturally assume that a dual coronation had taken place.

    What might be the motivation behind this presentation of the coronation ceremonial? If I am right in suggesting that a female relative of Jeanne commissioned the book, then a logical explanation presents itself. I suspect that the book is designed to celebrate the newfound status of the house of Evreux which became more prominent once one of its members married into the royal house. The female patron for the book was doubtlessly thrilled to have a familial link to royalty and to have attended the ceremony. She may have commissioned the book to celebrate her family by linking the queen's coronation to the king's, and to celebrate her own increased social status by pairing her coats of arms with the queen's throughout the book.

    The ordo in the collection of the University of Illinois does more than document royal ceremonial. This manuscript provides important insights into the ways in which private readers, like public viewers of the coronation, forged myths about royal ceremonies. Private myths, like the celebration of family pride that this book manifests, were by no means less common in France than the public myths about the coronation which became part of national consciousness. However such private myths are difficult to document. The ordo, with its glorification of the Evreux family, is thus an important and rare visual example of personal myth-making in the early fourteenth century.