Studies in Arthurian Illustration Volume 1 [Hardback]

Alison Stones has taught History of Art and Architecture in the USA since 1969 and has enjoyed Visiting Fellowships at the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and Paris. She is a specialist in illuminated manuscripts, co-authoring Les Manuscrits de Chrétien de Troyes (1993) and The Pilgrim's Guide to Santiago de Compostela, A Critical Edition (1998), and writing Le Livre d'images de Madame Marie (Paris, BNF n.a.fr. 16251) (1997), a devotional picture-book made for a lady of Mons. Professor Stones's articles are mostly on the illustration of French manuscripts, both sacred and profane. The present volume collects and updates Professor Stones's papers on Arthurian manuscript illustration, one of her continuing passions. These essays explore aspects of the iconography of the romances of Chrétien de Troyes in French verse, the lengthy Lancelot-Grail romance in French prose, and other versions of the chivalrous exploits of King Arthur's knights-the best-sellers of the Middle Ages. Illustrated copies of these romances survive in huge numbers from the early thirteenth century through the beginnings of print, and were read for their text and their pictures throughout the French-speaking world. Of special interest is the cultural context in which these popular works were made and disseminated, by scribes and artists whose work encompassed all kinds of books, for patrons whose collecting was wide-ranging, including secular books alongside works of liturgical and devotional interest.

Preface

Arthurian Art since Loomis

The Illustrated Chrétien Manuscripts and their Artistic Context

The Earliest Illustrated Prose Lancelot Manuscript?

’Mise en page’ in the French Lancelot-Grail: the First Hundred and Fifty Years of the Illustrative Tradition

Seeing the Grail

Illustrating Lancelot and Guinevere

Some Aspects of Arthur’s Death in Medieval Art; Illustration and the Fortunes of Arthur

Les débuts de l’héraldique dans l’illustration des romans arthuriens

The Illustrations in BNF fr 95 and Yale 229, Prolegomena to a Comparative Study

The Illustrations of Mort Artu in Yale 229: Formats, Choices, and Comparisons

Another Short Note on Rylands French 1

The Avignon Queste del saint Graal; Seeing the Walls of Troy

The Egerton Brut and its Illustrations

The Lancelot-Grail Project

Appendices

Index