Jean de Waurin or Wavrin was a medieval French chronicler and compiler, also a soldier and politician. He belonged to a noble family of Artois, and witnessed the Battle of Agincourt from the French side, but later fought on the Anglo-Burgundian side in the later stages of the Hundred Years' War. As a historian, he put together the first chronicle intended as a complete history of England, very extensive but largely undigested and uncritical. Written in French, in its second version it extends from 688 to 1471, though the added later period covering the Wars of the Roses shows a strong bias towards Burgundy's Yorkist allies. Strictly his subject is Great Britain, but essentially only England is covered, with a good deal on French and Burgundian events as well.
The Froissart of Louis of Gruuthuse is a heavily illustrated deluxe illuminated manuscript in four volumes, containing a French text of Froissart's Chronicles, written and illuminated in the first half of the 1470s in Bruges, Flanders, in modern Belgium. The text of Froissart's Chronicles is preserved in more than 150 manuscript copies. This is one of the most lavishly illuminated examples, commissioned by Louis of Gruuthuse, a Flemish nobleman and bibliophile. Several leading Flemish illuminators worked on the miniatures.
Simon Bening was a Flemish miniaturist, generally regarded as the last major artist of the Netherlandish tradition.
Louis de Bruges, Lord of Gruuthuse, Prince of Steenhuijs, Earl of Winchester, was a Flemish courtier, bibliophile, soldier and nobleman. He was awarded the title of Earl of Winchester by King Edward IV of England in 1472, and was Stadtholder of Holland and Zeeland 1462–77.
Simon Marmion was a French and Burgundian Early Netherlandish painter of panels and illuminated manuscripts. Marmion lived and worked in what is now France but for most of his lifetime was part of the Duchy of Burgundy in the Southern Netherlands.
Colard Mansion was a 15th-century Flemish scribe and printer who worked together with William Caxton. He is known as the first printer of a book with copper engravings, and as the printer of the first books in English and French.
David Aubert was a French calligrapher who transcribed and adapted courtly romances and chronicles for the court of the Duke of Burgundy. In addition to finely presented works, illuminated at Bruges and other centres, for the Dukes Philip the Good and Charles the Bold and the Duchess Margaret of York, he completed manuscripts for Antoine de Bourgogne and Philippe de Croy.
Jean Miélot, also Jehan, was an author, translator, manuscript illuminator, scribe and priest, who served as secretary to Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy from 1449 to Philip's death in 1467, and then to his son Charles the Bold. He also served as chaplain to Louis of Luxembourg, Count of St. Pol from 1468, after Philip's death. He was mainly employed in the production of de luxe illuminated manuscripts for Philip's library. He translated many works, both religious and secular, from Latin or Italian into French, as well as writing or compiling books himself, and composing verse. Between his own writings and his translations he produced some twenty-two works whilst working for Philip, which were widely disseminated, many being given printed editions in the years after his death, and influenced the development of French prose style.
The Master of James IV of Scotland was a Flemish manuscript illuminator and painter most likely based in Ghent, or perhaps Bruges. Circumstantial evidence, including several larger panel paintings, indicates that he may be identical with Gerard Horenbout. He was the leading illuminator of the penultimate generation of Flemish illuminators. The painter's name is derived from a portrait of James IV of Scotland which, together with one of his Queen Margaret Tudor, is in the Prayer book of James IV and Queen Margaret, a book of hours commissioned by James and now in Vienna. He has been called one of the finest illuminators active in Flanders around 1500, and contributed to many lavish and important books besides directing an active studio of his own.
The Turin–Milan Hours is a partially destroyed illuminated manuscript, which despite its name is not strictly a book of hours. It is of exceptional quality and importance, with a very complicated history both during and after its production. It contains several miniatures of about 1420 attributed to an artist known as "Hand G" who was probably either Jan van Eyck, his brother Hubert van Eyck, or an artist very closely associated with them. About a decade or so later Barthélemy d'Eyck may have worked on some miniatures. Of the several portions of the book, that kept in Turin was destroyed in a fire in 1904, though black-and-white photographs exist.
The Rothschild Prayerbook or Rothschild Hours, is an important Flemish illuminated manuscript book of hours, compiled c. 1500–1520 by a number of artists.
Willem Vrelant was a Dutch book illuminator.
The Hours of Mary of Burgundy is a book of hours, a form of devotional book for lay-people, completed in Flanders around 1477, and now in the National Library of Austria. It was probably commissioned for Mary, the ruler of the Burgundian Netherlands and then the wealthiest woman in Europe. No records survive as to its commission. The book contains 187 folios, each measuring 225 by 150 millimetres. It consists of the Roman Liturgy of the Hours, 24 calendar roundels, 20 full-page miniatures and 16 quarter-page format illustrations. Its production began c. 1470, and includes miniatures by several artists, of which the foremost was the unidentified but influential illuminator known as the Master of Mary of Burgundy, who provides the book with its most meticulously detailed illustrations and borders. Other miniatures, considered of an older tradition, were contributed by Simon Marmion, Willem Vrelant and Lieven van Lathem. The majority of the calligraphy is attributed to Nicolas Spierinc, with whom the Master collaborated on other works and who may also have provided a number of illustrations.
Quentin Poulet was a Burgundian Catholic priest, known as a scribe, illuminator, and librarian, from Lille. Between 1492 and at least 1506, when he disappears from the historical record, he was the first recorded librarian of the Old Royal Library of England, and probably "an arbiter of continental taste for the English royal court".
Jean Wauquelin presenting his 'Chroniques de Hainaut' to Philip the Good is a presentation miniature believed to have been painted by the Flemish artist Rogier van der Weyden. It decorates the frontispiece to the Chroniques de Hainaut, MS KBR.9242, Jean Wauquelin's French translation of a three-volume history of the County of Hainaut originally written in Latin by the 14th-century Franciscan historian Jacques de Guyse.
The Hours of Joanna I of Castile is a sixteenth-century illuminated codex housed in the British Library, London, under call number Add MS 35313.
The Ghent-Bruges school is a distinctive style of manuscript illumination which was prevalent in the Southern Netherlands from about 1475 to about 1550. Though the name highlights the importance of Ghent and Bruges as centres for manuscript production, manuscripts in the style were produced in a wider area.
A presentation miniature or dedication miniature is a miniature painting often found in illuminated manuscripts, in which the patron or donor is presented with a book, normally to be interpreted as the book containing the miniature itself. The miniature is thus symbolic, and presumably represents an event in the future. Usually it is found at the start of the volume, as a frontispiece before the main text, but may also be placed at the end, as in the Vivian Bible, or at the start of a particular text in a collection.
The Spinola Book of Hours is a sixteenth-century illuminated manuscript, consisting of 310 folios with 84 fully illustrated miniature paintings. This medieval manuscript was produced in the region between Bruges and Ghent in Flanders around 1510-1520. According to Thomas Kren, a former curator of the J. Paul Getty Museum, the artwork within the Spinola Hours can be attributed to five distinct artists. Forty-seven of these illuminated pages can be accredited to the 'Master of James IV'. The Spinola Hours bears a central coat-of-arms on the cover indicating it belonged to the Spinola family of Genoa. Today it is located at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.
The Master of Margaret of York is the Notname of an illuminator active in Bruges between 1470 and 1480. He owes his name to a devotional book he decorated for Margaret of York, wife of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. A large number of his illuminated books were executed for Louis de Gruuthuse. Several manuscripts have also been attributed to his assistants.
