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The corpus of literature on the Lady and The Unicorn tapestries has most often focussed on technical/stylistic aspects or attempted to explain the iconography of this work with little definitive consensus in either domain. An informative element in the history of this problematic work is the patron, who played a primordial role in the artistic process of the late Middle Ages. Although the patron of our subject has been identified as Jean LeViste and his personal and family history is relatively well-documented, few attempts have been made to place this work in the context of his reality. An investigation of the figure and his milieu will certainly benefit our understanding of the themes of heraldic display and courtly love that are most often proposed to interpret our work. The patron's situation will bring us to a new level of interpretation in this work---the glorification of women---which, like the other themes represented throughout this series, served the interests of the patron and reflected his reality.

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Columbia University, 1907. / "The ... chapters form part of a larger work which the writer hopes to complete." Published also in 1927 as part of Forerunners of Saint Francis and other studies. Bibliography: p. 71-75.

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This dissertation is a comparative study of children who succeeded as kings of England, Scotland, France, and Germany as boys under the age of fifteen in the central Middle Ages. Children are often disregarded in the historical record, even those divinely-ordained as king. The research undertaken in this thesis aims to uncover a more human aspect to medieval kingship by combining social aspects of childhood and gender studies with a political and legal approach to the study of the nature of rulership and royal administrative practices. Part I provides vital context of how royal fathers prepared their underage sons for kingship. I argue for the importance of maternal involvement in association, demonstrate the significant benefits a comparative approach brings to our understanding of anticipatory actions, and reveal the impact which changes in the circumstances and documentation of royal death had on preparations for child kingship. In Part II, I focus on vice-regal guardianship to expose how structural legal, social, political, and cultural changes affected the provisions for a child king. The symbolic meaning of knighthood, which had been a clear rite of passage to adulthood in the eleventh century, later became a precursor to kingship. The child’s progression to maturity was increasingly directed by legalistic ideas. These developments meant that, by the first half of the thirteenth century, queen mothers faced greater challenges to their involvement in royal governance alongside their sons. Part III presents a challenge to the idea that periods of child kingship were necessarily more violent than when an adult came to the throne through an analysis of instances of child kidnap, maternal exclusion from guardianship and departure from the kingdom, dynastic challenge, and opportunistic violence. Children often appear as passive actors controlled by the adults around them but accepting this unquestioningly is too simplistic. Child kings could make an impact on the political landscape even if they could not do so alone. Through an innovative comparative analysis of a child’s preparation for rulership, the care of king and kingdom, and the vulnerabilities and challenges of child kingship, I demonstrate far greater political continuity across medieval monarchies than is usually appreciated. This constitutes a fresh and original contribution towards the study of medieval rulership in northwestern Europe.

Although the works of Christine de Pizan have been of interest to scholars for some time, technological advances and initiatives to make digital copies of manuscripts available online have only recently enabled close comparisons between the visual programmes of her works to be made. This thesis demonstrates that detail usually considered secondary or 'paratextual' in Christine's manuscripts actually formed a carefully-constructed part of the work itself that Christine explicitly asks her audience to read. Through 'reading' the text and image simultaneously, the visual programme proves to comprise additional layers of meaning that were woven into her didactic works. These meanings can serve to supplement the educational and moral aims of the works, or, conversely, can be inconsistent with the message conveyed in the text, leading the reader-viewer to contemplate further on the matters presented and form their own opinions on them. Sometimes, meaning is created by intervisual connections with pre-existing iconography, such that viewers may be creating associations between the miniatures seen in Christine's manuscripts and other imagery, leading them to make certain associations - this is notably the case in author-portraits of Christine. As manuscripts prepared under the author's supervision came to be copied, changes were made to the iconographic programmes, testifying to and enabling different types of readings to take place. The findings of this thesis have implications for editorial practices of medieval works in general, as these tend to circulate in editions without the visual programme, providing modern readers with only a partial view of the complete work.

Cette thèse de doctorat se fonde sur l'analyse d'un corpus de 157 recueils manuscrit s utilisés en France ou en Angleterre entre le XIIIe et le XVe siècle, et dont le contenu, majoritairement en français ou en anglais, est marqué par une certaine diversité. A travers l'analyse codicologique de la forme matériel le et du contenu de ces recueils, elle vise à comprendre leurs modes de composition et la diversité des intérêts des lecteurs dans le domaine vernaculaire. Une première partie méthodologique expose la méthode de constitution du corpus, le cadre de classement utilisé pour catégoriser les textes, et les différents types de recueil du point de vue matériel. Une typologie synthétique des recueils est ensuite proposée. Dans un deuxième temps est analysée la place de ces recueils dans la production manuscrite, puis les logiques à l'œuvre dans l' utilisation des livrets (unités codicologiques produites séparément ou ensemble) et des rajouts manuscrits pour leur composition. Les analyses de la troisième partie se concentrent sur les intérêts, les catégories culturelles et les pratiques d'écriture des lecteurs, tels que ces recueils les révèlent. Après avoir tenté une étude globale des intérêts des lecteurs en fonction de leur position sociale, on propose une analyse de la divergence des modes de réception del' histoire en France et en Angleterre . La dimension pragmatique des recueils anglais est ensuite étudiée dans son contexte social et historique, de même que les interactions entre le droit, la médecine et la culture vernaculaire. / This thesis studies a corpus of 157 manuscript miscellanies used in France and in England between the 13th and the 15th century, and which contents, mostly in French or in English, are somehow diverse. Through the codicological analysis of the material form and the contents ofthose miscellanies, this thesis aims at understanding their mode of composition and the diversity of the readers's interests in vernacular matters. The firsl part explains the way the manuscripts were selected, the categories used to classify their texts, and the different physical types of miscellanies. A comprehensive typology of those miscellanies is then proposed. The second part focuses on the importance of miscellanies in the global manuscript production , and on the logic of their composition through the use ofbooklets, tillers and notes. The third part of this thesis studies the interests, the cultural framework and the writing habits ofreaders as they are revealed in the corpus.First, their interests are tentative ly confronted to their social starus. Then, a comparison between the ways history was received in France and in England shows a divergence in this regard. The pragmatic habits and tastes ofEnglish readers is then studied in its social and historical context, as are the interactions between law, medicine and vemacular culture.