L'Histoire de Charles Martel, vol. 3 (Ms. 8, fol 7r)

The present folio is from the manuscript L’Histoire de Charles Martel, vol. 3 (Ms. 8, fol 7r), the author (or rather the translator) of which was David Aubert (1435-after 1479), one of the most famous calligraphers, translators, and compilers in the service of the Duke of Burgundy between 1458 and 1479. Attached to the Dukes Philip the Good and Charles the Bold and the Duchess Marguerite of York, he completed manuscripts for Antoine de Bourgogne and Philippe de Croy.

Whereas the text was copied by Aubert within the ducal household at Brussels - the first volume in 1463 and the last in 1465 - the decoration was undertaken by artists based in Bruges. In 1468 the illuminator Pol Fruit was paid for the decorated initials in the third volume, and in 1472 the miniaturist Loyset Li�det was paid for the forty-three miniatures in the third and fourth volumes, as well as further initials and the bindings, his signature is also incorporated into one of the miniatures at the beginning of the final volume (ms. 7, fol 9). The echo of Eyckian artistic ambitions found in this rare signature is complemented by Eyckian parallels in the composition of the opening miniature of the first volume, in which the writer is depicted being visited by Charles Martel in his study.

Important illuminated manuscripts were often, sometimes elaborately, personalised by adding the owner’s coat of arms, devices, and mottoes, as in the present illumination, near the upper edge of selected folios.