Prudentia in a Class-room? A Late Medieval Mirror as Revealing Object in a Miniature from London, BL Harley MS 3828

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Prudentia in a Classroom?
A Late-Medieval Mirror as Revealing Object
in a Miniature from London, BL Harley MS 38281
Romedio Schmitz-Esser
This article discusses a miniature from the Manuscript BL Harley MS 3828
(London, British Library). On folio 27v, this Flemish prayer book from mid-fifteenth
century is illustrated with a miniature showing five female figures in a
room. According to a recent study by Kathryn Rudy, this scene depicts the setting
of a secular late medieval classroom.2 In modification of Rudy’s interpretation,
I would like to argue that this illustration shows not a realistic scene but the
presentation of three girls to an allegorical figure (most likely Prudentia) by
their mother. Therefore, it is an allegoric scene, although real persons might be
depicted. To back up this view, I will examine the miniature’s iconography more
closely by making use of current research on the material culture of the Middle
Ages. Thus using the techniques of the so-called ‘Realienkunde’, I would like to
give another proof of the value of object history in the understanding of medieval
art.
Let us start with a closer look at the depicted scene (fig. 1). One of the
five figures in the miniature sits on a seat (or throne) holding a stick-like object
with a circular-shaped upper part in her left hand. Her right hand is open to receive
the hand of the young woman to her right. This young woman is kneeling
together with two other female figures in front of the enthroned lady. The young
woman and her companion to her right are holding an open book in their hands,
displaying their dedication to intense study. Behind this group of three young
women, a fifth female figure is holding the kneeling woman in front of her by
her shoulder. One can hardly resist interpreting this gesture as a form of introduction;
it seems likely to be this fifth, apparently mature woman, who is presenting
the three young women in front of her to the lady on the throne, who is
1 I thank Duane Henderson for the revision of my text and English writing style. Furthermore,
I am indebted to Claudia Schmitz-Esser for her comments on this paper and to Thomas
Kühtreiber who aroused my curiosity for the work of the ‘Institut für Realienkunde des
Mittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit’ at Krems.
2 Cf. Kathryn M. Rudy, “An Illustrated Mid-fifteenth-century Primer for a Flemish Girl:
British Library, Harley MS 3828,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes LXIX
(2006): 51-94.
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expected to take care of the youngsters. Rudy concludes that the enthroned lady
and the fifth women are one and the same person: the teacher of the three girls in
the miniature. Consequently, she interprets the illumination as a classroom scene
supporting this interpretation by pointing out that a late-medieval hornbook
suspends from the wall in the left corner of the room.3 Therefore, in Rudy’s
eyes, “it becomes clear that the image may be the earliest representation of girls
in a secular classroom.”4
Fig. 1: London, British Library, Harley MS 3828, fol. 27v.
© The British Library Board
3 Ibidem, 56-8.
4 Ibidem, 55.
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However, there remain open questions. Why should the artist have chosen
such an unfortunate composition that he was forced to show the teacher twice?
And what is that object in the hand of the enthroned lady? Rudy would like to
identify it with a ferule, although she must concede, “that most medieval ferules
have not survived”, and asks rhetorically: “did they break during use?”5
Unfortunately, according to Rudy, only a later example of a ferule has been
preserved in the Museum for the History of Education in Rotterdam, and one
would have liked to compare this artefact to the discussed miniature.6 In her
interpretation, the image of this object was inserted in the codex to “inspire the
original young owner by showing her the tools of pedagogy, which are encouraging
as well as threatening.”7 But is this interpretation convincing? As several
studies on medieval art history and their interpretation show, it can be quite difficult
to understand the meanings of pictorial language,8 especially so, if no
other evidence than the picture itself has survived for its interpretation.
Therefore, an analysis of the object should not proceed from a not yet
convincingly confirmed interpretation of the miniature’s intention, but from an
impartial scrutiny of the object itself from the perspective of the ‘Realienkunde’.
Although I do not contradict the assumption that Harley MS 3828 was
used for educational purposes, I do doubt that the scene presented was merely
meant to depict a medieval schoolroom.
The key to a proper understanding of the scene is the figure on the throne.
As I already stated, one does not necessarily have to interpret the object in her
hand as a ferule, since late-medieval ferules in this shape were not common and
could therefore hardly be identified by the contemporaneous observer as such.
On the contrary, an examination of fifteenth-century depictions of ferules used
in late-medieval schoolrooms makes it most probable that the object in question
is not a ferule, as ferules commonly consisted of a bundle of oakum, sticks or
branches. One can find this object in several depictions of the Holy Kinship, a
popular theme of late medieval art. To cite some examples for depictions of such
bundle-ferules, one can refer to a painting of Lucas Cranach,9 a woodcut of the
same artist with a complementary poem by Philipp Melanchthon,10 a sign board
5 Ibidem, 58.
6 Ibidem. A figure showing the Rotterdam example is not inserted in Rudy’s article. As I
would like to argue that the depicted object is not a ferule at all and knowing that the Rotterdam
ferule is not contemporary, this object will not be considered here.
7 Ibidem.
8 As to this aspect, cf. Christine B. Verzar and Gil Fishhof, eds., Pictorial Languages and
Their Meanings: Liber Amicorum in Honor of Nurith Kenaan-Kedar (Tel Aviv, 2006),
which collects several studies on this topic.
9 Vienna, Gemäldegalerie der Akademie der Bildenden Künste, c. 1510/12. Cf. Daniel Hess,
“Die Hl. Sippe und der Wandel des Familienbildes,” in Mit Milchbrei und Rute. Familie,
Schule und Bildung in der Reformationszeit (Kulturgeschichtliche Spaziergänge im Germanischen
Nationalmuseum 8) ed. idem (Nuremberg, 2005)‚ 21-34, here 30, fig. 16.
10 Ibidem, 31, fig. 17.
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from Basel by Ambrosius Holbein11 and a woodcut showing the flagellation of
the teacher by his disciples in a German Petrarch-edition.12 Sometimes, a simple
stick seems to have sufficed not only to point, but also served as a ferule as
well.13 In our context, a rather crude drawing from Vienna is of some interest: it
shows the late-medieval bundle-ferule “in action” (fig. 2). To the left, the
allegorical figure of Grammar is depicted. She has two attributes in her hands: A
bundle-ferule and a honeyspoon, signalizing her power to punish and to reward
her disciples.14
fig. 2: Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. 2975, fol. 1v.
11 Basel, Kunstmuseum, 1516; ibidem, 32, fig. 18.
12 Francesco Petrarca, Von der Artzney bayder Glück. Erstes Buch, fol. 98r, Augsburg
1519/20; see Max Liedtke, “Schule und Bildung in der Reformationszeit,” in Mit Milchbrei
und Rute, 51-74, here 54, fig. 40.
13 Cf. the woodcut ‘Teacher and Disciples’ by Albrecht Dürer, Nuremberg 1510; ibidem, 53,
fig. 39.
14 Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, cod. 2975, fol. 1v; Hess, Mit Milchbrei und
Rute, 13, fig. 2, identifying the items as “Honiglöffel und Rute” (a honeyspoon and a
ferule).
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Photo: Institut für Realienkunde, Krems/Donau
The combination of Grammar and a scene of medieval kids around her in the
Vienna Codex warns us that we should not be too fast in interpreting the miniature
from the British Library as a faithful depiction of daily life in a classroom.
Could the lady to the left in this miniature not be an allegory, too? A comparison
of the drawing from Vienna and the London manuscript makes clear, that the
object depicted in the London manuscript could more likely be the honeyspoon
than a late-medieval ferule. So, at first glance, the enthroned figure from the
manuscript could be an allegory of Grammar.
Fig. 3: Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. 5393, fol. 329r.
Photo: Institut für Realienkunde, Krems/Donau
Although we should not exclude this possibility, which could fit to the manuscript’s
iconography, one has to consider the three concentric circles on the upper
edge of the object. Is it, then, perhaps a more complex item? In my opinion,
it could be a late-medieval mirror. Such mirrors are shaped in a form very similar
to the object in question. The two inner concentric circles could be a two-di41
mensional depiction of the curvature of a mirror’s glass, as in the case of a
manuscript illustration in a codex from Vienna showing a virgin with a mirror in
her hand (fig. 3).15 Late-medieval mirrors had a circular appearance with curved
glass in the centre surrounded by a wooden or metal edge, as may be seen in
several works of late-medieval and Renaissance art. The best known, albeit in
our context slightly exotic example is Parmigianino’s self-portrait in the
Kunsthistorisches Museum at Vienna. The shape of the mirror is more clearly
recognizable in paintings such as Hans Baldung Grien’s picture of an
allegorical, female figure in the Alte Pinakothek at Munich: The mirror in her
hand is circular with a curved glass in its centre.16 In several pieces of art from
the fourteenth and fifteenth century similar mirrors are depicted.17 To give just
one late-fifteenth-century example: the tombstone of Margarethe, the wife of
Jörg Puhler in the parish church of Imst (Tyrol), shows a similar shape.18 One of
the two coats of arms on this marble slab shows a monkey with a mirror as its
crest (fig. 4). Again, the mirror has a similar form. This example shows that the
circular mirror was a very common feature in the fifteenth century.19 Therefore,
15 Coloured drawing from around 1465, Vienna, ÖNB cod. 5393, fol. 329r. Cf. Sarah Khan,
Diversa Diversis. Mittelalterliche Standespredigten und ihre Visualisierung, Pictura et
poesis. Interdisziplinäre Studien zum Verhältnis von Literatur und Kunst 20 (Cologne,
Weimar and Vienna, 2007), 356-85. The use of multiple concentric circles in late medieval
depictions of mirrors is not uncommon. To give just one more example: In another codex
from Vienna (Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, cod. 12490, fol. 99r, around 1439), Venus
holds a mirror with three concentric circles in her hand. Enlarged colour reproductions of
this codex are available for consultation through realonline on the website of the Institut für
Realienkunde, Krems.
16 Hans Baldung Grien, Frau mit Spiegel, Schlange, Hirsch und Hindin, 1529, Munich, Alte
Pinakothek; cf. Gisela Goldberg, “Inv. Nr. 1423/5376,”, in Alte Pinakothek München,
catalogue 3rd ed. (Munich, 1999), 55-6. A similar example of a mirror can be found in Hans
Baldung Grien’s depiction of the Three Ages at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
(Inv. 2636).
17 To give some examples: One could refer to the wall painting showing the deadly sin of
pride with a mirror in her hands on the northern wall of the parish church St. James at
Levoča (Slovakia), originating from around 1380-1400; to an altar by the Master of Bat,
showing St. Catherine looking at herself in a mirror, at the Keresztény Múzeum at
Esztergom (Hungary), around 1410-1420; or to the two mirrors, one in the chamber of St.
Marc and one in St. John Evangelist’s chamber, from the altar in the parish church at
Schönbach (Lower Austria), around 1490-1500. All these mirrors show a circular shape.
Reproductions of these paintings are available for consultation through realonline on the
website of the Institut für Realienkunde, Krems.
18 Imst (Tyrol, Austria), on the western wall of the parish church, dated 1494/95. Cf.
Romedio. Schmitz-Esser, “Die Wappendarstellungen vom Haus Schlossergasse 13, Hall in
Tirol,” in Forum Hall in Tirol. Neues zur Geschichte der Stadt 2, Nearchos Sonderheft 16,
ed. Alexander Zanesco and Romedio Schmitz-Esser (Hall in Tirol, 2008), 220-37, here 224.
19 The monkey with a mirror in its hands was a common feature in the 15th and early 16th century.
The motive can be found in several late-medieval miniatures, for example in a prayer
book from Tyrol or Bavaria, originating from around 1512, and an (Austrian?) bible, around
1445; Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, cod. 2747, fol. 104r, and cod. 1228, fol.
82r. A monkey with a mirror in its hand accompanies the wall painting of St. Christopher in
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the circular object in the London manuscript could have been easily identified
by contemporaries as a mirror. And as already Giotto’s Prudentia from the
Arena Chapel in Padua looks at herself in a circular mirror, which she holds in
her hand, it would appear that the London manuscript’s figure shows Prudentia
as well.
Fig. 4: Tombstone of Margarethe Puhler, 1494/95, Imst (Tyrol), parish church.
Photo: Watzek, Hall in Tirol
There is only one odd detail within the London miniature: The mirror is attached
to a staff or stick. One could think that this is the handle of the mirror, and indeed,
the female figure holds the mirror by using this staff as a handle. But, although
the circular shape of the mirror is obvious, such mirrors are normally depicted
without such a handle. It may be that the handle in the miniature was an
unfortunate combination of Prudentia’s mirror with an attribute belonging to anthe
church of St. Andrew at Gajach (Carinthia, Austria), around 1515-1525. As a crest, the
mirror can be found in the hands of a female figure in one of the coats of arms in a votive
picture showing the donator in front of St. Christopher and the Virgin and Child with St.
Anne, from Styria, around 1490, today in the treasury of the Teutonic Order at Vienna.
Reproductions of these MSS, the wall painting and the votive picture are available for
consultation through realonline on the website of the Institut für Realienkunde, Krems.
43
other allegory: the sceptre of Sapientia.20 So, as we can not rule out completely
that the allegorical figure is that of Grammar, we can also not be sure that it is
not that of Sapientia herself. However, due to the mirror, an identification as
Prudentia seems most likely. Moreover, in all three cases we should identify the
figure as a personified allegory.
Fig. 5: Lucas Furtenagel, Hans Burgkmair and his wife Anna.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum
But is the depiction of a stick as the mirror’s handle the invention of the artist’s
inability? Such mirrors did exist, and pictures of them are to be found in fifteenth-
and sixteenth-century art. The portrait of the well-known artist Hans
Burgkmair and his wife by Lucas Furtenagel in the Kunsthistorisches Museum
at Vienna depicts the couple in front of a mirror in the hand of Burgkmair’s
wife, showing their faces as skulls and therefore becoming a memento mori (fig.
5). The mirror has not only a curved surface and a metal frame, but a long stick
20 For example, on the frontispiece to Robert Recorde’s ‘The Castle of Knowledge’, the female
figure on top of the castle (obviously Wisdom herself) has a sceptre in her hands; Jean
Wilson, “Queen Elisabeth I as Urania,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes,
LXIX (2006): 151-73, here 165, fig. 10.
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as its handle.21 A similarly shaped mirror with a massive, stick-like handle appears
in a woodcut by Cornelis Anthonisz, showing the Wise Man and the Wise
Woman.22 Moreover, in several late-medieval depictions of the Virtues, Prudentia
is holding a comparable mirror with handle.23 Thus, the identification of the
object in question as a mirror seems most probable.
If we, therefore, accept the interpretation that the enthroned lady is
Prudentia, the whole scene becomes comprehensible. The three young girls in
front are coming to the allegorical figure as their future teacher, the hand gesture
of the first of the three girls towards Prudentia is a gesture of mutual
acceptance. The fifth female figure to the right could be the mother of the three
girls, as she seems to present them to Prudentia. From this perspective, the
group of the three daughters and their mother could have been composed by the
artist in analogy to the rows of praying family members (“Beterreihe”), which is
a common feature in late medieval and early modern epitaphs.24
To conclude, the miniature from Harley MS 3828 shows allegorical and
realistic elements. The aim of the artist was not primarily to give a depiction of a
classroom situation in a fifteenth-century school. He borrowed elements from
daily school life, however, to garnish his illustration. The medieval hornbook is
an example of this. But these borrowings do not contradict the interpretation of
the scene in an allegorical sense. To cite another example: In a woodcut from
Gregor Reisch’s Margerita philosophica, the female figure opening the tower of
sciences to the young disciple has a panel in her hand, which shows similarities
to the hornbook in the London miniature.25 Another feature of the London
miniature which coincides with its allegorical interpretation are the kneeling
figures of the three girls in its centre. Do we really have to think that medieval
school kids were kneeling during their lessons? Although we may assume that
the relationship of students to their teachers was more respectful in the Middle
Ages than today, kneeling could hardly have been the daily posture in a
medieval classroom. Moreover, we seldom find pupils in this posture in front of
21 Karl Schütz, “I.15 Der Maler Hans Burgkmair und seine Frau Anna, geb. Allerlai,” in Wir
sind Maske, ed. Claudia Ferino-Pagden, exhibition catalogue (Milan and Vienna, 2009), 81-
2, with a bibliography on the history and attribution of this piece.
22 Today in Amsterdam, Rijksprentenkabinet, P-RP-P-1932-127, from around 1540. Cf.
Andrew Morrall, ‘Ornament as Evidence’, in History and Material Culture. A Student’s
Guide to Approaching Alternative Sources, ed. Karen Harvey (London et al., 2009), 47-66,
here 58.
23 Such mirrors are to be found in the hand of Prudentia in MS 9232, fol. 448v of the Bibliothèque
Royale in Brussels, the MS fr. 9186, fol. 304r of the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris,
or the Add. MS 6797, fol, 276r in the British Museum. All examples taken from: Rosemond
Tuve, ‘Notes on the Virtues and Vices’, in Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes
XXVI (1963): 264-303.
24 Rudolf M. Kloos, Einführung in die Epigraphik des Mittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit, 2nd
ed. (Darmstadt, 1992), 79.
25 Gregor Reisch, Margerita philosophica (Straßburg, 1504); Liedtke, “Schule und Bildung,”
57, fig. 41.
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their teacher in depictions without an allegorical context. We may conclude that
the London miniature shows three late medieval, well situated schoolgirls being
presented to Prudentia by their mother and interpret the scene at the same time
as an allegory of their work (Learning) and the aim of their efforts (Prudentia)
in their real life.
As this analysis has shown, “Realienkunde” is of immense value to art
history, especially studying the Middle Ages. For the interpretation of pictorial
language, the object itself becomes more and more relevant, and the case of the
miniature from folio 27v in Harley MS 3828 shows the applicability of research
into the material heritage of the Middle Ages.
M E D I U M A E V U M
Q U O T I D I A N U M
60
KREMS 2010
HERAUSGEGEBEN
VON GERHARD JARITZ
GEDRUCKT MIT UNTERSTÜTZUNG DER KULTURABTEILUNG
DES AMTES DER NIEDERÖSTERREICHISCHEN LANDESREGIERUNG
Titelgraphik: Stephan J. Tramèr
ISSN 1029-0737
Herausgeber: Medium Aevum Quotidianum. Gesellschaft zur Erforschung der
materiellen Kultur des Mittelalters, Körnermarkt 13, 3500 Krems, Österreich.
Für den Inhalt verantwortlich zeichnen die Autoren, ohne deren ausdrückliche
Zustimmung jeglicher Nachdruck, auch in Auszügen, nicht gestattet ist. –
Druck: Grafisches Zentrum an der Technischen Universität Wien, Wiedner
Hauptstraße 8-10, 1040 Wien.
Inhaltsverzeichnis
Vorwort ……………………………………………………..…………….…… 4
Kristina Potuckova, Female Messages from the High Altar ..………….……… 5
Isabella Nicka ‚Möbel‘ als Analysekategorie der mittelalterlichen Bildwelt.
Strukturierendes und funktionalisiertes Interieur
in konfigurierten Innenraumdarstellungen …………………………….. 17
Romedio Schmitz-Esser, Prudentia in a Classroom?
A Late-Medieval Mirror as Revealing Object
in a Miniature from London, BL Harley MS 3828 ………………….… 36
Buchbesprechungen ………………………………………………………..….. 46
Anschriften der Autoren ………………………………………………………. 59
4
Vorwort
Das vorliegende Heft von Medium Aevum Quotidianum beschäftigt sich vorrangig
mit der Untersuchung und Analyse von verschiedenen Bereichen spätmittelalterlicher
bildlicher Überlieferung und ihrer Bedeutungsmuster. Die Beiträge
von Kristina Potuckova und Isabella Nicka sind die für den Druck überarbeiteten
Vorträge der Autorinnen, welche sie am 45. International Medieval Congress
in Kalamazoo/Michigan im Mai 2010 in der Sektion „Intention and Response:
Late Medieval Images and Public Space“ gehalten haben.1 Beide Aufsätze zeigen
in beeindruckender Weise, wie stark Alltag und materielle Kultur einerseits
mit religiösen, andererseits sozialen und geschlechtsspezifischen Komponenten
des mittelalterlichen Lebens verbunden waren. Sie vermitteln darüber hinaus,
wie wichtig sich die Analyse der ‚Zeichensprache‘ von Bildinhalten des Zeitraums
für ein besseres Verständnis der Wirkung visueller Botschaften darstellt.
Der Beitrag von Romedio Schmitz-Esser widmet sich der Neuinterpretation
einer flämischen Miniatur aus der Mitte des 15. Jahrhunderts, die bis dato
als die Wiedergabe eines Schulraumes für den Unterricht von Mädchen gedeutet
worden war. Mit Hilfe des Herausarbeitens und einer Analyse der allegorischen
und realistischen Bildelemente gelingt ihm ein wichtiger neuer Vorschlag zur
Sinngebung der Darstellung.
Gerhard Jaritz
1 Die Sektion wurde vom Department of Medieval Studies von Central European University
(Budapest) und dem Consortium for Medieval and Early Modern Studies (Claremont,
Kalifornien) organisiert. Die Vortragstitel waren: Kristina Potuckova, Female Messages
from the High Altar (Central Europe, Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries); Isabella Nicka,
Saintly Distance and Domestic Proximity: The Sign Language of Furniture in Late
Medieval Art.