Visual Arts and the Auld AllianceScotland, France and National Identity c.1420-1550
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About this book
Shortlisted for The Walpole Society: Berger Prize 2025
Recognised as 'Exemplary Scholarship on the period before 1600' by the Historians of British Art Book Prize
Explores the links between patronage, identity and Franco-Scottish relations in the late medieval and early modern periods
- This monograph is the first book-length study of Franco-Scottish relations and the visual arts in the late-medieval and early modern periods
- Offers new interdisciplinary approaches to Franco-Scottish history, that challenge traditional accounts where there has been a failure to investigate visual material
- Based on extensive archival research and making use of unknown and little-known visual and archival evidence, this work examines material from collections held in Scotland, France, the Netherlands, and Italy
- Applies innovative interdisciplinary approaches, combining patronage studies and a consideration of artistic agency. It develops new methodologies combining art historical methods with insights drawn from political, military, and architectural histories and manuscript studies
- Forms a significant contribution to our understanding of the history of Scotland’s place in Europe and the significance of its historic ties to France in particular
This monograph provides the first substantial analysis of the visual arts commissioned by Scots in France prior to Mary Queen of Scots. It examines how Scottish identity was represented and promoted through patronage of the visual arts.
Tying together previously unpublished archival documents with under-researched visual and material culture, this monograph examines how Scots used patronage to establish their place in French society thus furthering the reputation of the royal house of Scotland, and progressing their own social, political, and diplomatic aims.
Incorporating analysis of grand architectural projects, such as the foundation of the Sainte-Chapelle at Vic-le-Comte, and studies of extraordinary manuscripts such as the Monypenny Breviary and the military manuals of Bérault Stuart, this work highlights recurring themes within architectural history, art history, and material culture studies. By addressing broader questions of Scotland's historic relations with Europe, it makes a necessary contribution to modern day concerns.
Reviews
Visual Arts and the Auld Alliance offers an original and sophisticated exploration of the artistic and literary patronage of Scottish émigré in late medieval and early modern France. The volume places particular emphasis on visual imagery as a means to convey and depict ideas about individual, lineage and collective ‘national’ identities, the histories that underpinned them, and the nature of the relationship between the French and Scottish realms. The rich array of visual images discussed, including many previously unknown to Scottish historians, is used to analyse and interrogate the way in which these families and individuals articulated their sense of Scottish identity within a French milieu. The study rests on an impressive scholarly engagement with manuscripts held in a variety of French archives. Coombs marshals her evidence deftly and perceptively to add new insights and nuance to our understanding of the cultural connections that ran alongside and deepened the political and military ties between the two kingdoms. Through a series of well-chosen case studies, the book investigates the interplay between art, politics and historical understanding, using visual material to cast new light on the framing of individual and collective identity. This is an important study that will be required reading for anyone interested in the cultural and political history of late medieval and early modern Scotland. More generally, Coombs’s work offers a striking contribution to wider debates about the potential use of art to convey, express or encourage a range of political and cultural ideas and to articulate notions of both difference and belonging.
Filled with scrupulous archival work and a staggering range of material, making it a joy from beginning to end.
Table of contents
List of Illustrations
Preface and Acknowledgements
Introduction: Images, Identity, and an Auld Alliance, 1420-1540
1. Scottish Princesses in France and Brittany: Authority, Agency, and Reputation
1.1 Margaret Stuart, Dauphine of France: Devotion in Text and Stone
1.2 Isabella Stuart, Duchess of Brittany: Manuscripts and Familial Memory
2. Franco-Scottish Mercenaries and the Arts: Establishing Status and Creating Identities
2.1 Bérault Stuart d’Aubigny: Politics and Self-fashioning
2.2 Robert Stuart d’Aubigny: A Scottish Maréchal de France
2.3 Dictating the Art of War
3. Franco-Scottish Diplomacy and the Arts: Knowledge Acquisition and Exchange
3.1 Sir William Monypenny: Diplomacy and Espionage
3.2 A Virgil Manuscript as a Diplomatic Gift for James III
3.3 Bérault Stuart d’Aubigny: Cartography and a Diplomatic Dossier
3.4 Robert Stuart d’Aubigny and James V in France
4. A Franco-Scottish Cleric and his Breviary: Patronage, Piety, and Identity
4.1 The Monypenny Breviary: Popes, Prisons and Porcupines
4.2 The Monypenny Breviary: Catching the Light
5. A Franco-Scottish Regent and the Arts: The Patronage of John Stuart, Duke of Albany
5.1 Albany and the Literary Arts of Bremond Domat
5.2 Albany and the Sainte-Chapelle at Vic-le-Comte
5.3 Albany and Military Science
5.4 Blood and Vellum: Genealogies and Gift Exchange as Diplomacy
Conclusion: Franco-Scots as an Imagined Political Community