Jeanne D Evreux

Two accounts take different positions on the role of the Book of Hours in the life of Jeanne d'Evreux, Queen to Charles IV of France, in the 14th century. The first, by Madeline Caviness, argues that the patron (or matron, rather) was mainly affected by the illustrations of the book; the other, by Joan Holladay, argues that its content and context influenced the queen more. In this essay, I argue that the latter was more possibly and more convincingly the case.
The two accounts are similar in many respects. First, they recognize two facts: that Jeanne d’Evreux was the third wife of Charles IV, and that Charles IV gave her her Hours as a present. In establishing these, three questions arise. First, what was the original intention of the book, as commissioned and given to her? Second, what were the effects of the book on Jeanne? Third, what were the first impressions that Jeanne had upon seeing the book? These
The illustrations, both those in marginalia and in the text, she claims, are what Jeanne would have focused on. Placing herself in Jeanne's position, she would have been scared and anxious to see the book's illustrations (Caviness 344). For example, the beginning of Christ's Passion shows two men kissing; below, a figure of a ram, considered "lascivious and hermaphrodite," and a barrel having the appearance of a uterus is shown (description on p. 342). Caviness also points out illustrations that seem to be phallic-like, a sort of “visual pun” that have survived throughout the centuries. She deems all of these illustrations as arousing feelings ranging "from surprise and fear to repulsion and disgust” (354). With these in mind, Caviness claims that “the Book of Hours was thus a far more effective schoolbook than a separate treatise on the virtues and vices, which like any schoolbook might be laid aside”