St James Major as a pilgrim from the Coëtivy Hours

Dunois Master, attributed to

Folio with three-quarter page miniature from a book of hours attributed to the Dunois Master, written in Latin and French in a bastarda script, made in Paris and dated 1443–1445. It was commissioned by Prigent de Coëtivy (1399?–1450) on the occasion of his marriage to Marie de Rais (1429–1457). Removed from the bound volume between 1933 and 1960. Beneath rubrics in red, a prayer to James the Apostle opens with the illuminated initial ‘O’ (O adiutor omnium seculorum) painted with white, red, blue, and gold ivy-leaf ornament (most of the gold is lost). It is one of an unusually large series of forty-seven suffrages, or short prayers to the saints, arranged hierarchically. The section opens with a number of prefatory prayers, followed by the Apostles, Martyrs, Confessors and Virgins. The miniature is painted in demi-grisaille with pigments and gold and depicts St James Major (or James the Great) as a pilgrim. He is often shown with a pilgrim’s staff and broad-brimmed hat emblazoned with a scallop shell. He also carries a satchel, or canteen, also decorated with a shell. The discovery of the saint’s burial place in Spain appears in sources from the ninth century. Santiago de Compostela was a major pilgrimage site throughout the medieval period, where tourists can still buy souvenir shells. The overpainted single charge of Alain de Coëtivy (with pigment loss in the original Rais quarters) is found in the lower margin. The arms are replaced on the verso with Prigent’s motto, ‘Dame sans per’ (lady without equal), written around a mirror. The central lozenge is flanked on both sides by a hybrid creature and a cat on a bellows. This strange imagery may have been included to contrast the desperate cries (clamantibus) of pilgrims with the sound of wind escaping from both the instrument and the cat; the response on the verso reads, ‘Lord hear my prayer and let my cry (clamor) come before you'. A small bird, probably a goldfinch, also inhabits the margins.