More about the medieval sealskin bindings at Clairvaux

The Artnet website has a report about the identification of sealskin as the binding of a number of manuscripts from Clairvaux, about which I wrote in Sealskin at Clairvaux

This new article adds further details from the research, partly about the origin of the sealskin, but also about its choice by the Cistercians. The argument is that although the bindings are now brown this is a result of aging, and that originally they would have been white or light grey. This would correspond to the white or off-white monastic habits of the Cistercians.

The article can be seen at These Medieval Texts Were Bound With an Unlikely Animal Hide

Sealskin at Clairvaux

A reader has very kindly forwarded to me the link to an article on The History Blog about recent research into the bindings of a group of manuscripts from the library of the abbey at Clairvaux. Based on the findings the research was then extended to other monastic collections, which showed some similar results.

Modern investigative techniques revealed that these were not deer or boar skin but in fact North Atlantic sealskin. It is suggested that some may have come as tithe  offerings - although I would comment that the Cistercians sought to avoid receiving tithes - or that the seal leather was bought through links to Hanseatic traders. The Champagne trade fairs were not that distant and still an important source of cloth and leather as well as other goods at the time the books were being copied. The history and significance of these fairs is set out by Wikipedia at Champagne fairs

This discovery gives further evidence of the trading links which extended across medieval Europe, When one visits Clairvaux today it seems very far from the sea, and exudes a curious melancholy around the remains of the abbey which is still used by the French state as a prison. In the age of St Bernard and in subsequent centuries it must have been busier and very much a hive of economic activity as well as a commanding centre of prayer and spirituality.

The article about the research into the bindings can be seen at Medieval manuscripts were bound in sealskin

The article makes the point that the monks may not have realised that the leather was sealskin and that seals do not figure very much in medieval sources. I do recall reading - but cannot find the reference at the moment  - of a story, presumably from the Evesham Abbey chronicle, of a discussion in Chapter there of how exactly the abbey was going to feed pilgrims who were expected in coming days. A young monk who had not been paying much attention to the discussion interjected that he had seen a creature swimming in the river Avon that might help. This was a seal, which ended up being used to feed the visitors….. ( sorry about that animal lovers and vegetarians ). There are occasional stories these days of seals coming inland along rivers, though whether one could reach Evesham by the Severn and the Avon I could not say - but then how did the story come about?

St Bernard in medieval art

Last Thursday, August 20th, was the feast day or day of commemoration of St. Bernard of Clairvaux.

I posted two years ago about my visit to what remains of Clairvaux. This was rather depressing as although there is a visitor centre in the forecourt the remaining portions of the abbey are still used as a prison, to which limited access is possible at certain times - we were not able so to do. It seems extraordinary to me that a site of such historic and spiritual interest shoulds still, after more than two centuries, be used as a prison by the French authorities. The atmosphere is, as I said above, rather depressing and slightly sinister, as well as frustrating to the pilgrim

John Dillon has posted what he describes as some period-pertinent images of St Bernard on the medeval religion discussion group as follows:

a) as depicted (at left, in prayer with bishop St. Malachy of Armagh) in a late thirteenth-century copy (ca. 1280-1300) of French origin of the Legenda aurea (San Marino, CA, Huntington Library, ms. HM 3027, fol. 106r; image greatly expandable):
http://tinyurl.com/28tzdt3

b) as depicted (standing central figure plus scenes from the life) in a late thirteenth-century altarpiece of Catalan origin (ca. 1285-1290; either Barcelona or Mallorca) in the Museu de Mallorca:
http://tinyurl.com/qa56v5u [click on "Ampliar Imagen"]

 

http://tinyurl.com/plwftg7

c) as depicted (flanked by two nuns) in the late thirteenth-century Beaupré Antiphoner (ca. 1290) from a house of Cistercian nuns in the diocese of Cambrai (Baltimore, Walters Art Museum, ms. W 760, fol. 113v):
http://www.thedigitalwalters.org/Data/WaltersManuscripts/W760/data/W.760/sap/W760_000234_sap.jpg
http://cistercians.shef.ac.uk/image_gallery/pages/0273.php

d) as depicted (at right; at left, the Emperor Conrad III) in an earlier fourteenth-century copy (ca. 1301-1325) of Vincent of Beauvais' Speculum historiale (Paris, BnF, ms. Latin 4900, fol. 184r):
http://tinyurl.com/2wzhge3

e) as depicted in an earlier fourteenth-century copy (ca. 1330) of his Epistulae (Laon, Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 168, fol. 1r):
http://www.enluminures.culture.fr/Wave/savimage/enlumine/irht6/IRHT_099811-p.jpg

f) as depicted (at left; at right, the BVM appearing to him) by Giovanni da Milano in a predella panel of his mid-fourteenth-century Prato polyptych (ca. 1343-1363) in that city's Pinacoteca comunale:
http://tinyurl.com/nascwmz

g) as depicted (at left, second from top [just beneath St. Eulalia]) as depicted either by Ferrer Bassa and Arnau Bassa or by Arnau Bassa alone in their or his mid-fourteenth-century altarpiece of the Annunciation and the Epiphany (betw. 1347 and 1360) in the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, Barcelona:
http://www.museunacional.cat/sites/default/files/015855-000.JPG

h) as depicted in a mid- to later fourteenth-century breviary for the Use of Paris ("Breviary of Charles V"; betw. 1347 and 1380; Paris, BnF, ms. Latin 1052, fol. 478r):
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b84525491/f965.image

i) as depicted (at center) in an earlier fourteenth-century copy (1348), from the workshop of Richard and Jeanne de Montbaston, of the Legenda aurea in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (Paris, BnF, ms. Français 241, fol. 214r):
http://tinyurl.com/283o38m

j) as depicted (at right; at left, the BVM appearing to him) by Matteo di Pacino (a.k.a. the Master of the Cappella Rinuccini) in the central panel of his later fourteenth-century triptych of the Apparition of the Virgin to St. Bernard (1360s), now in the Galleria dell'Accademia in Florence:

 

http://www.wga.hu/art/m/matteo_p/appariti.jpg

https://acrh.revues.org/docannexe/image/2768/img-1.jpg
Detail view:
https://acrh.revues.org/docannexe/image/2768/img-2.jpg

k) as depicted in a late fourteenth- or early fifteenth-century Cistercian breviary of Catalan origin ("Breviary of Martin of Aragon"; Paris, BnF, ms. Rothschild 2529, fol. 374r):
http://www.aquiweb.com/templiers/images/bernard2.jpg

l) as depicted in one of the numerous pen-and-ink illustrations in the margins of an early fifteenth-century copy (ca. 1400-1415) of the Chronicon a mundi creatione ad annum 1220, an abbreviation and continuation of the Pantheon of Godfrey of Viterbo (Paris, BnF, ms. Latin 4935, fol. 17r):
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8455934w/f43.image

m) as depicted in an early fifteenth-century breviary (ca. 1414) for the Use of Paris (Châteauroux, Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 2, fol. 304r):
http://www.enluminures.culture.fr/Wave/savimage/enlumine/irht2/IRHT_054146-p.jpg

n) as depicted in an earlier fifteenth-century Franciscan breviary (ca. 1430; Chambéry, Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 4, fol. 594r):
http://www.enluminures.culture.fr/Wave/savimage/enlumine/irht1/IRHT_035713-p.jpg

o) as depicted (at left; at right, the BVM appearing to him) by Filippo Lippi (with workshop assistance?) in a mid-fifteenth-century panel painting (1447) in the National Gallery, London:
http://tinyurl.com/qxobnch

 

http://tinyurl.com/pcqbvtb

p) as depicted (left of centre, at the building of the abbey of Clairvaux) in a mid-fifteenth-century copy (betw. 1447 and 1455) of Giovanni Colonna's Mare historiarum (Paris, BnF, ms. Latin 4915, fol. 361r):
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b6000905v/f791.item
NB: At fol. 369v ; the BnF's image database Mandragore identifies the two standing figures as "s. hildegarde et s. bernard". Yet the manuscript's own chapter heading immediately preceding this illumination describes what follows as De Ildegarde prophetissa theutonie et Ricardo de sancto Victore et eius libris.._. One might think, then, that the standing figure in Cistercian habit and holding a book is not St. Bernard but rather his fellow Cistercian Richard of St. Victor.

q) as depicted (holding a devil on a slender chain) by the workshop of Filippo Lippi in a mid- or slightly later fifteenth-century panel painting (ca. 1447-1469) in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York:
https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/1975.1.70b

r) as depicted in a panel from a mid-fifteenth-century stained glass window (ca. 1450) of upper Rhine origin in the Musée national du Moyen Âge (Musée de Cluny) in Paris:
http://tinyurl.com/p8prbtk

s) as depicted (standing over a devil falling to the floor or arising from it) in a later fifteenth-century copy (ca. 1451-1500) from Bruges of Jean Mansel's Fleur des histoires (Paris, BnF, ms. Français 298, fol. 76r):
http://tinyurl.com/pxzp3oz

t) as depicted (upper register at center; with others of his family) in a later fifteenth-century copy (ca. 1480-1490) of the _Legenda aurea_ in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (Paris, BnF, ms. Français 245, fol. 44r):
http://tinyurl.com/pkjav53

u) as depicted (at center; at left, the Virgin appearing to him) as depicted by Filippino Lippi in a late fifteenth-century panel painting (ca. 1482-1486) in Florence's chiesa della Badia Fiorentina:

 

 http://tinyurl.com/pez4hle

Detail view (Bernard):
http://tinyurl.com/otgly5h

v) as depicted (leading a devil chained to him) in a late fifteenth-century Roman breviary (betw. 1482 and 1500; Clermont-Ferrand, Bibliothèque du patrimoine, ms. 69, fol. 1v):
http://www.enluminures.culture.fr/Wave/savimage/enlumine/irht4/IRHT_081510-p.jpg

w) as depicted by the Master of the Modena Book of Hours in a late fifteenth-century Dominican missal from Lombardy (ca. 1490-1500; The Hague, Museum Meermanno, Ms. 10 A 16, fol. 211v):
http://manuscripts.kb.nl/zoom/BYVANCKB%3Amimi_mmw_10a16%3A211v_init

x) as depicted (at right, his lactation by the BVM) in a late fifteenth-century miscellany of canon law (ca. 1490-1500; Troyes, Médiathèques de l'Agglomération Troyenne, ms. 41, fol. 1r):
hxtp://www.enluminures.culture.fr/Wave/savimage/enlumine/irht7/IRHT_108351-p.jpg

y) as depicted (lower register at right) in the very late fifteenth-century Prodigal Son window of the cathédrale Saint-Pierre-et-Saint-Paul in Troyes (baie 232; after July 1499):

 

http://therosewindow.com/pilot/Troyes%20cathedral/w232-tl4.htm

z) as depicted (his lactation by the BVM) in an early sixteenth-century collection of private prayers and devotions in Latin and in French (ca. 1501-1520; Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Douce 264, fol. 38v):
http://tinyurl.com/qdzrl7y

aa) as depicted in an earlier sixteenth-century window panel (baie 6; window is from ca. 1501-1525 with extensive late C19 additions) in the église paroissiale Sainte-Savine in Sainte-Savine (Aube):
http://therosewindow.com/pilot/Troyes-St-Savine/w16-c2.htm

bb) as depicted (with his parents, Aleidis and Tesclin; here considered saints) in earlier sixteenth-century window panels (ca. 1505-1508) thought to have come from the Cistercian abbey of Mariawald in today's Heimbach (Lkr. Düren) in the Eifel southwest of Köln and now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/wallyg/2190512206

cc) as depicted (being tempted by a devil) in an early sixteenth-century book of hours for the Use of Rome (ca. 1510; Tours, Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 2104, fol. 149r):
http://www.enluminures.culture.fr/Wave/savimage/enlumine/irht2/IRHT_051185-p.jpg

dd) as depicted in thirteen panels of varying size from a suite of earlier sixteenth-century windows (after 1535) on the life of Bernard from the Cistercian abbey of Altenberg in today's Odenthal (Lkr. Rheinisch-Bergisches Kreis) just east of Köln and now in Köln in the Museum Schnütgen:
http://tinyurl.com/nfhvggr

Gordon Plumb added  a link to his album on Flickr of the St Bernard panels from Altenberg now in St Mary's Shrewsbury:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/albums/72157611911914112

Clairvaux

On our ourney northwards across Burgundy we entered the heartland of the Cistercian Order, and passed the sign for Citeaux itself. Further on, and near to the Gaullist shrine of Colombey les Deux Eglises we came to the sign for Clairvaux and decided to break our journey for lunch there.  

The village is quite pretty, and the monastic enclosure quite clearly defined by its perimeter wall, but the home of St Bernard is today a rather sad place for the pilgrim or historian.

 St Bernard of Clairvaux 

Image: fatherhollywood.blogspot.co.uk

Founded in 1115 on a site immediately to the west of the present enclosure the house expanded and produced agreat number of daughter foundations under the example and influence of its great abbot. In 1134/5 it moved to the present site, two decades before St Bernard died in 1153. The conventual buildings were nearly all replaced by the present complex in 1708 - as at Paray and cluny evidence once again of vitality amongst the monastics of the Ancien Regime, but following the revolution the abbey became a prison, which it remains to this day, and in 1808 the medieval  church was destroyed.

 Clairvaux before the eighteenth century rebuilding and post-revolution destruction

Image:gardenvisit.com

Although it is still a prison, there is a visitors centre in the Hostellerie des Dames, which dates from about 1500, and where we had lunch in a common room, with good information displays about the abbey on the walls. We did not have time, but one can pay and enter part of the prison - no cameras, mobile phones etc - and see the surviving cloisters.  

Clairvaux today - the entrance to the eighteenth century buildings

Image: Wikipedia

In many ways the complex was rather forlorn - the eighteenth century buildings no doubt wrecked by two centuries of prison use, about one medieval buildingin in that complex, a few surviving outbuildings and the perimeter wall, and the great church demolished. The hot weather and a sense of the dustiness of the outer courtyard added to that sensation. I am sure that in England it would no longer be a prison and more would be made of a monastery of such historical significance. An interesting visit to a place that cries out for more attention - though it is now receiving some to make it accessible to visitors.