DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.44947#0011
ISABELLE
Mr. Thompson’s
MS. written for
a lady.
Isabelle of
France, sister
of St. Louis.
tures. In dealing with the book in its liturgical and artistic
aspects I shall have to make constant reference to the com-
panion Psalter at Paris. I have to thank the Rev. E. S.
Dewick for kindly solving several liturgical problems which
were beyond my knowledge.
Provenance.—It has been pointed out both by Dr.
Haseloff and by M. Delisle that Mr. Thompson’s manuscript
was written for a woman, as the feminine form peccatrix is
found in the prayers on ff. 240 b and 241. There is internal
evidence which enables us to infer her identity.
As in the Psalter of St. Louis the line-endings are largely
heraldic; but whereas in that volume the arms of Provence
recur constantly, in Mr. Thompson’s volume the lilies of
France and the castles of Castile hold the field almost en-
tirely; in three line-endings only (on ff. 169 b and 174)1 do
the castles alternate with the pales of Provence. This seems
conclusive evidence that the lady for whom the book was
executed was not St. Louis’s queen, Marguerite of Provence.
On the contrary, one must search for a daughter of Louis
VIII and Blanche of Castile (whose obits on Nov. 8, 1226,
and Nov. 27, 1252, are recorded in the Kalendar), and one
is forced to conclude that the original owner was Isabelle
of France, whose saintly life led to her beatification. She was
the only sister of St. Louis who survived infancy.
Born in March, 1225, eleven years after St. Louis, and
less than two years before their father’s death, Isabelle in-
herited a large fortune. She was sought in marriage in 1244
by the Emperor Conrad IV, and was promised six years later
to Hugh of Lusignan XI, Comte de la Marche. But she
preferred to renounce the world, and in 1255 founded for
the sisters of St. Clare the monastery of the Humility of the
Blessed Mary, afterwards known as Longchamp, near Paris.
Here she retired in 1260, and died and was buried ten years
later, 23 February, 1270, from a malady attributed to her aus-
terities. Her Lady in Waiting, Agnes of Harcourt, a subse-
quent abbess of the monastery, who died in 1291, has left a
1 These were done together, being adjoining pages of the same piece of vellum.
FRANCE
9
long eulogy of her mistress, from which I have taken some
interesting passages:
“ In her youth she was full graceful, and of great beauty,
and for all that she was so noble of lineage, yet was she
higher and more noble in her conduct. She knew well that
that alone is true nobility which is an ornament of the spirit
through goodness of soul and sandfity of life, as will appear
in what follows. She was daughter and spouse and special
friend of our Lord Jesus Christ, and all her desires, and all her
thought, and all her labours were to destroy sin and plant
virtues in herself and in others. She was a mirror of inno-
cence, an example of penitence, a rose of patience, a lily of chas-
tity, a fountain of pity. She was a school of all good conduct.
“ When she was sufficiently introduced to letters, she
studied to learn to work in silk, and made stoles, and other vest-
ments for holy Church. . . . Once she worked with her own
hands a kerchief, which the saintly King Louis, her brother,
asked of her, and begged of her full graciously that she
would give it him, and he would put it of a night on his
head: but she would not give it him, as I sister Agnes of
Harcourt, who was present, heard from her mouth with my
own ears. She answered the King and said: ‘I propose that
it shall be given to Our Lord, for it is the first that ever I
worked.’ And he prayed her and said: ‘ Sister, then I pray
you to work another for me to have,’ and she replied: ‘ I
am quite willing if I work more of them.’ And this kerchief
she sent secretly to a poor woman who lay in great languor,
whom she supplied very heedfully each day with dainties
from her table. And the Lady Jeanne and the Lady Peiron-
nelle of Montfort heard of this matter of the kerchief, and
went to the poor woman secretly, and bought it, and gave
her as much as she would take for it, and it now belongs to
the Nuns of St. Anthony, and they keep it as a relic.
“ It was her custom to be at prayer in her oratory, and she
would enter her room and be there till noon studying the
holy Scriptures, such as the Bible and the holy Gospels, and
the lives of the saints: for she understood Latin right well,
and so well she understood it that when the chaplains had
B
Her character
described by
her Lady in
Waiting.
Mr. Thompson’s
MS. written for
a lady.
Isabelle of
France, sister
of St. Louis.
tures. In dealing with the book in its liturgical and artistic
aspects I shall have to make constant reference to the com-
panion Psalter at Paris. I have to thank the Rev. E. S.
Dewick for kindly solving several liturgical problems which
were beyond my knowledge.
Provenance.—It has been pointed out both by Dr.
Haseloff and by M. Delisle that Mr. Thompson’s manuscript
was written for a woman, as the feminine form peccatrix is
found in the prayers on ff. 240 b and 241. There is internal
evidence which enables us to infer her identity.
As in the Psalter of St. Louis the line-endings are largely
heraldic; but whereas in that volume the arms of Provence
recur constantly, in Mr. Thompson’s volume the lilies of
France and the castles of Castile hold the field almost en-
tirely; in three line-endings only (on ff. 169 b and 174)1 do
the castles alternate with the pales of Provence. This seems
conclusive evidence that the lady for whom the book was
executed was not St. Louis’s queen, Marguerite of Provence.
On the contrary, one must search for a daughter of Louis
VIII and Blanche of Castile (whose obits on Nov. 8, 1226,
and Nov. 27, 1252, are recorded in the Kalendar), and one
is forced to conclude that the original owner was Isabelle
of France, whose saintly life led to her beatification. She was
the only sister of St. Louis who survived infancy.
Born in March, 1225, eleven years after St. Louis, and
less than two years before their father’s death, Isabelle in-
herited a large fortune. She was sought in marriage in 1244
by the Emperor Conrad IV, and was promised six years later
to Hugh of Lusignan XI, Comte de la Marche. But she
preferred to renounce the world, and in 1255 founded for
the sisters of St. Clare the monastery of the Humility of the
Blessed Mary, afterwards known as Longchamp, near Paris.
Here she retired in 1260, and died and was buried ten years
later, 23 February, 1270, from a malady attributed to her aus-
terities. Her Lady in Waiting, Agnes of Harcourt, a subse-
quent abbess of the monastery, who died in 1291, has left a
1 These were done together, being adjoining pages of the same piece of vellum.
FRANCE
9
long eulogy of her mistress, from which I have taken some
interesting passages:
“ In her youth she was full graceful, and of great beauty,
and for all that she was so noble of lineage, yet was she
higher and more noble in her conduct. She knew well that
that alone is true nobility which is an ornament of the spirit
through goodness of soul and sandfity of life, as will appear
in what follows. She was daughter and spouse and special
friend of our Lord Jesus Christ, and all her desires, and all her
thought, and all her labours were to destroy sin and plant
virtues in herself and in others. She was a mirror of inno-
cence, an example of penitence, a rose of patience, a lily of chas-
tity, a fountain of pity. She was a school of all good conduct.
“ When she was sufficiently introduced to letters, she
studied to learn to work in silk, and made stoles, and other vest-
ments for holy Church. . . . Once she worked with her own
hands a kerchief, which the saintly King Louis, her brother,
asked of her, and begged of her full graciously that she
would give it him, and he would put it of a night on his
head: but she would not give it him, as I sister Agnes of
Harcourt, who was present, heard from her mouth with my
own ears. She answered the King and said: ‘I propose that
it shall be given to Our Lord, for it is the first that ever I
worked.’ And he prayed her and said: ‘ Sister, then I pray
you to work another for me to have,’ and she replied: ‘ I
am quite willing if I work more of them.’ And this kerchief
she sent secretly to a poor woman who lay in great languor,
whom she supplied very heedfully each day with dainties
from her table. And the Lady Jeanne and the Lady Peiron-
nelle of Montfort heard of this matter of the kerchief, and
went to the poor woman secretly, and bought it, and gave
her as much as she would take for it, and it now belongs to
the Nuns of St. Anthony, and they keep it as a relic.
“ It was her custom to be at prayer in her oratory, and she
would enter her room and be there till noon studying the
holy Scriptures, such as the Bible and the holy Gospels, and
the lives of the saints: for she understood Latin right well,
and so well she understood it that when the chaplains had
B
Her character
described by
her Lady in
Waiting.