Joan of Arc’s Bible in French

This biblical compilation constitutes an important step in the long process of translating the Bible into French, which was particularly pronounced during the thirteenth century, but no further copies were produced in the centuries that followed. It is modelled on Peter Comestor’s (c.1100–1179) Historia scolastica, in which the ‘master of histories’ from Troyes recounted the entire holy story from the Garden of Eden to the Ascension, by referring to secular, Jewish, and Christian sources from different periods. Struck by the unusual nature of some of the miniatures, academics believe that it dates from around 1250—and more precisely from King Louis IX’s journey to the Near East, during the seventh crusade.

A masterpiece of illumination from the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, whose centre was established at Saint-Jean-d’Acre after the loss of the Holy City, the manuscript reflects the  cosmopolitism and high level of culture in a capital that had become an important place for pilgrims and merchants, and the residence of the Patriarch. The king himself stayed there on several occasions and the scriptorium in Acre may have been created under his patronage. This biblical compendium—which is generously illustrated and whose literal content was perfectly adapted to the devout sensibilities of the king, who provisionally ruled the States of the Holy Land—was produced in this scriptorium.  

In all, twenty painted leaves are the frontispiece to the twenty books in the Old Testament in this compilation, constituting the most important surviving cycle from the Latin East. Most of the pages are organized into a mosaic of small scenes within various geometric shapes, following a decorative style that was in vogue in contemporary northern illumination (the St Louis Bible, and the Bible of Souvigny) and which was inspired by stained-glass windows. The Byzantine style of the ensemble immediately strikes the eye, but this is mixed with purely Western iconographic influences, so much so that it is sometimes difficult to immediately distinguish between the two. Thus, at the beginning of Exodus (f. 30) Moses is rescued from the Nile by a young nude woman in front of a Gothic facade where God Himself is pointing at the child with his index finger, before giving the Tablets of Law to the Patriarch—this is never found in the illustrations in Byzantine Octateuchs. At the beginning of Numbers (f. 54v) there is a representation of the battle between the Israelites and the Amalekites. Hur is aiding Aaron to hold up the hands of Moses, thereby ensuring that the Israelites prevail in the battle. Below, the prophet Balaam, mounted on his she-ass, is met on route by an angel of God. Depicted as a religious Muslim with his long white robe and prominent turban, the prophet attests to a renewed interest in the depiction of local customs ‘painted from life’ and an updating of iconographic designs used in the Byzantine manuscripts from the ninth to twelfth centuries. The dramatic killing of Holofernes (f. 252)—a vengeful and frightening Judith in a striped dress is holding up his head—after his troops laid siege to Bethulia, represented as a medieval fortress, is reminiscent of illuminated works from the French courts. Conversely, the full page at the beginning of the Book of Proverbs (f. 307) is perfectly rooted in the tradition of luxurious codices from the Macedonian Renaissance (ninth to eleventh centuries): Solomon, who is wearing a crown and an imperial Byzantine robe, is composing under the aegis of Divine Wisdom personified, like David playing the harp under the inspiration of the personification of ‘melodia’ in the famous Paris Byzantine Psalter (BnF, MS Greek 139).