Copied manuscripts and women warriors

In the days before mass production, when all items were made individually by hand, each item was necessarily unique. However, sometimes one item would be copied from another. Fashion rivals might intentionally mimic each other’s signature looks, or one artist might copy a subject and composition from another.

The same is true for manuscripts. In the twenty-first century, when we say two books are copies of the same thing, we generally mean they are both from the same mass production run. However, even when manuscripts were produced in large numbers for sale instead of on commission, they are not clone duplicates the way modern books are. Two manuscripts might be witnesses of the same text tradition, or transcribed from the same original, or made by the same creative team (scribe, artist, illuminator, and so on), but they have individual differences, however tiny. They might have different errors, or use different pigments.

Because of how mansucripts pass from owner to owner and end up in modern collections, manuscripts made together are often stored far apart now. Studying copies made from the same original or by the same scribe usually involves meticulous catalog searches that depend on small details having been correctly identified. So unless you’re deliberately looking, most of the manuscripts you encounter will be noticeably different from each other.

I tend to look at several copies of the same text, if possible, but often my research doesn’t depend on identifying scrbes or finding texts with similar origins. I expect layouts to be generally familiar, because that’s not something medieval book makers were exploring creatively. I expect illustrations to have similar subjects and elements across copies of the same text— texts that were copied a lot may have consistent “cycles” of illustrations, where the same subjects appear in the same order— but usually have different styles and compositions.

This all makes it surprising when I do discover manuscripts that are too similar for coincidence!

Giovanni Boccaccio’s De mulieribus claris (On notorious women) is a great example of the complexity of the word “copy” in manuscript culture. The collection of over 100 short biographies of memorable women was very popular (and many versions were made) for multiple centuries, and the format makes the illustration cycle very consistent: it’s easy to have one illustration for all or most of the women, and the order of chapters is consistent from one book to the next.

These manuscripts are also interesting for a different kind of consistency: most of the time, all of the women in each copy are depicted in similar fashions and with similar appearances, even though they’re from widely disparate cultures.

Here’s Queen Zenobia of Palmyra, in what’s now Syria. The egregious, eurocentric whitewashing in the artwork is unmistakable. There are many reasons an artist might make that choice; one that’s particularly relevant to Zenobia’s hunting scene is a cringey unexamined sentiment similar to complimenting remarkable women by saying they’re almost like men. Zenobia’s own culture might have seemed inscrutible to readers in the early 15th century, but artists and writers could frame her in familiar motifs as short-hand explanations of her nobility and worthiness. Zenobia loved hunting, just like the aristocrats in your city!

Here she is in a 1410 manuscript, British Library (BL) Royal MS 20 C V. This is the oldest curently known copy of Des cleres et nobles femmes, an anonymous French translation of De mulieribus claris.

I haven’t found any research that comments more than superficially on the similarity of the illustrations in this 1440 manuscript, BL Royal MS 16 G V. It features the same anonymous French translation of Boccaccio, this time under the title Le livre des femmes nobles et renomees.

Here are some links to examples of other (less similar) Zenobia illustrations: Morgan MS M.381, NYPL Spencer 033, BnF Fr 598, BnF Fr 599, BnF Fr 12420,

Medieval people apparently loved to imagine the nobility of faraway lands and wonder about similarities and differences, for all that they tended to add too many similarities to visual representations. The Amazons were no exception: the Amazon nation of antiquity was treated nearly as factually as the Trojan War or the career of Julius Caesar. Amazons were interesting because of all the ways they were the opposite of European cultures: an exotic single-gender society completely focused on warfare and expansion. And yet when they appear in artwork, they are given European features and dressed in European clothing and equipped with fanciful but recognizable arms and armor. They even put on the same trappings of formality and nobility when they ride off to war, complete with a European heraldic device of three queens.

This next miniature illustration is from Epitre d’Othea, in which the wise muse Othea teaches Hector principles of good leadership using stories from antiquity including the Trojan War. Every illustrated manuscript of Epitre d’Othea (as far as I know) has an image of Penthesilea leading an army of women. Sometimes they are riding into battle, other times appearing from around a mountain curve, or riding through the countryside.

Here are the Amazons as they appear in Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) MS Français 606. BnF Fr 606 was created in Paris between 1400 and 1410 for the Duke of Berry, a major patron and collector of books, and it contains several works by Christine de Pizan.

And here’s Queen Penthesilea leading the Amazon army to aid the Trojan troops from British Library (BL) Harley MS 4431. This manuscript was created between 1410 and 1414 in Paris, for Isabeau of Bavaria, queen consort of France. It’s now known as “The Book of the Queen” and contains several works by Christine de Pizan.

At a glance, these aren’t immediately similar, but as you keep looking, details will start to catch your eye. Why does the upper-left-most amazon hold her elbow so awkwardly… both times? Would two different people choose the same white feather-fan for a queen’s horse? Would two artists both invent the same pose when they weren’t sure how a warrior queen would ride a horse? (Where are her legs? Where are her stirrups? Why is she up so high?)

What makes these similarities particularly interesting is that these two manuscripts are believed to have Christine de Pizan’s own handwriting in them (along with scribes and artists), and she directly oversaw the design and creation process. With that information, these would be two distinct interpretations of a detailed and precise image from Christine.

Other illustrations from these two manuscripts are even more similar. Here’s a vision of two aspects of Minerva (scholarship and martial skill) from BnF Fr 606:

And here’s the same scene from BL Harley 4431:

Just because they’re cool, here are a few more “two aspects of Minerva” miniatures from other copies of Epitre d’Othea: Bodley 421, Lille 391 175 (displaying an aspect in each hand), Beauvais Armarium 9 (on page 27), Hague KB 74 G 27, BnF Res. Ye-286.

Which brings me to my last pair of very similar manuscripts. This pair’s entanglement is more complicated than the others. Around 1455— decades after Christine de Pizan’s death— Jean de Mielot “adapted” Epitre d’Othea for his contemporary audience. He made adjustments to the text to highlight familiar, conventional classical mythology more and Catholic morality less, and generally made the text less “old-fashioned.” He also added 7 more stories and adjusted the composition to make all the sections the same length.

Mielot abandoned the 1455 copy before it could be illustrated, maybe because the length and layout didn’t come out the way he wanted.The better-known Mielot Epistre d’Othea is the copy made for Philip the Good, dated 1460 and now held by the Royal Library of Belgium. This copy was illustrated by Loyset Liedet who, to my great sadness, did not include as many women wearing armor as I was hoping, but did provide large, detailed illustrations.

Like many late medieval manuscripts, the first miniature illustration shows the author of the work presenting a book to the patron. However, unlike most copies of Epistre d’Othea, this one shows a man presenting the work. Not cool, Mielot. You didn’t change it that much.

There’s one place, however, that Liedet included one more armored lady than I expected.

Nona Faye Appel’s Master thesis observes that there’s more different from other copies than the extra armor. This miniature usually shows two contrasting aspects of the goddess, each bestowing attention or gifts on each of two distinct groups of supplicants, who reach skyward to show their love.

Liedet’s illustration focuses on two identical goddesses who are facing each other, as unaware of the world around them as if they’re on a date wondering if it would be okay to kiss instead of shaking hands. Even their armor is identical. To either side of them is a group of men at arms talking amongst themselves, looking a little like they’re waiting for an official order that will let them go home.

Fast forward to the 1480s. Around this time, Philip of Cleves came into possession of the 1455 unfinished Mielot manuscript, now held at Waddesdon, and commissioned illustrations for it.

Here’s the “two aspects of Minerva” illustration from the Waddesdon copy:

The Waddesdon page about this manuscript politely observes that “the designer of the illustrations probably knew little about the content of the text.”

The difference in fine detail is not entirely the fault of the 1480s illustrator; the Liedet illustrations take up more than a third of the content area of their pages, while the 1480s illustrations are less than a quarter of that area, maybe as small as a sixth. These illustrations are credited to a workshop, which might explain why the cloth, armor, and faces all have different detail and expertise levels.

Not all of the 1480s illustrations are exact imitations of Liedet’s work. Most notably, the first illustration in the manuscript, afforded more than half a page, shows some architecture with questionable perspective and an interior scene showing a woman in a brilliant red dress presenting a well-bound volume to a male patron on a throne.

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