« Ce livre cy est a tres haulte, tres excellante et puissante princesse ». Les manuscrits de Marguerite d’York (1446-1503), duchesse de Bourgogne : un mécénat politique

Abstract

Margaret of York’s library is now well known, thanks to several studies that have renewed history of women’s patronage concerning religious manuscripts as well as active workshops (and their copyists and illuminators) nearby princely courts. Duchess of Burgundy in uncertain times, Margaret of York does not only take over the role of her predecessors about manuscripts. She indeed makes them (and their production, their donation or their receiving) a tool for political practices hitherto used by the dukes rather than the duchesses. This article thus examines the process of politicization of the women’s patronage in the 1470s’ as an attempt for Margaret of York to meet the challenge of both Fortuna and the eschatological context establishing an unprecedented pressure on the House of Burgundy. More widely, the manuscript policy makes Margaret of York an intermediary between the Middle Ages’ Duchesses and the Early Modern period’s governesses.