Cathédrale de Chartres; Civilization, Medieval; Mont-Saint-Michel (Abbey : France)
The date seems to be fixed by the windows themselves. Beneath the
Prophets kneel Pierre and his wife Alix, while their two children,
Yolande and Jean, stand. Alix died in 1221. Jean was born in 1217.
Yolande was affianced in marriage in 1227, while a child, and given
to Queen Blanche to be brought up as the future wife of her younger
son John, then in his eighth year. When John died, Yolande was
contracted to Thibaut of Champagne in 1231, and Blanche is said to
have written to Thibaut in consequence: "Sire Thibauld of Champagne,
I have heard that you have covenanted and promised to take to wife
the daughter of Count Perron of Brittany. Wherefore I charge you, if
you do not wish to lose whatever you possess in the kingdom of
France, not to do it. If you hold dear or love aught in the said
kingdom, do it not." Whether Blanche wrote in these words or not,
she certainly prevented the marriage, and Yolande remained single
until 1238 when she married the Comte de la Marche, who was, by the
way, almost as bitter an enemy of Blanche as Pierre had been; but by
that time both Blanche and Pierre had ceased to be regents.
Yolande's figure in the window is that of a girl, perhaps twelve or
fourteen years old; Jean is younger, certainly not more than eight
or ten years of age; and the appearance of the two children shows
that the window itself should date between 1225 and 1230, the year
when Pierre de Dreux was condemned because he had renounced his
homage to King Louis, declared war on him, and invited the King of
England into France. As already told, Philippe Hurepel de Boulogne,
the Comte de la Marche, Enguerrand de Couci,--nearly all the great
nobles,--had been leagued with Pierre de Dreux since Blanche's
regency began in 1226.
That these transept windows harmonize at all, is due to the Virgin,
not to the donors. At the time they were designed, supposing it to
be during Blanche's regency (1226-36), the passions of these donors
brought France to momentary ruin, and the Virgin in Blanche's Rose
de France, as she looked across the church, could not see a single
friend of Blanche. What is more curious, she saw enemies in plenty,
and in full readiness for battle. We have seen in the centre of the
small rose in the north transept, Philippe Hurepel still waiting her
orders; across the nave, in another small rose of the south
transept, sits Pierre de Dreux on his horse. The upper windows on
the side walls of the choir are very interesting but impossible to
see, even with the best glasses, from the floor of the church. Their
sequence and dates have already been discussed; but their feeling is
shown by the character of the Virgin, who in French territory, next
the north transept, is still the Virgin of France, but in Pierre's
territory, next the Rose de Dreux, becomes again the Virgin of
Dreux, who is absorbed in the Child,--not the Child absorbed in
her,--and accordingly the window shows the chequers and ermines.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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