St Leonard 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). The folio was removed from the bound volume between 1933 and 1960. Beneath rubrics in red, a prayer to St Leonard the Confessor opens with the illuminated initial ‘S’ (Simulabo eum viro sapienti qui edifica) painted with white, red, blue and gold ivy-leaf ornament. It is one of an unusually large series of forty-seven suffrages, or short prayers to 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 Leonard of Noblac (or Limoges) with two prisoners. According to a life of the saint, produced in the 11th century, Leonard served in the Merovingian court of Clovis I (c. 466–511). He was not only an advocate for prisoners but also associated in their liberation. His cult was popular with prisoners of war, especially growing during the Crusades. Various legends record prisoners miraculously freed from their chains after invoking the saint. In the miniature, Leonard wears a deacon’s dalmatic and reads from a book while two prisoners kneel and pray at his feet. Two additional figures in fetters prays to the saint from the lower margin, they are unfettered on the verso.