LIÉDET, Loyset
(b. ca. 1420, Hesdin, d. 1479, Brugge)

The Scribe's Workshop

1470-72
Illumination on parchment
Bibliothèque Royale de Belgique, Brussels

The present folio is from the manuscript L'Histoire de Charles Martel, vol. 3 (Ms. 8, fol 7r), the author (or rather the translator) of which was David Aubert (1435-after 1479), one of the most famous calligraphers, translators, and compilers in the service of the Duke of Burgundy between 1458 and 1479.

Whereas the text was copied by Aubert within the ducal household at Brussels - the first volume in 1463 and the last in 1465 - the decoration was undertaken by artists based in Bruges. In 1468 the illuminator Pol Fruit was paid for the decorated initials in the third volume, and in 1472 the miniaturist Loyset Liédet was paid for the forty-three miniatures in the third and fourth volumes, as well as further initials and the bindings. The echo of Eyckian artistic ambitions can be seen in the composition of the opening miniature of the first volume, in which the writer is depicted being visited by Charles Martel in his study.

Important illuminated manuscripts were often, sometimes elaborately, personalised by adding the owner's coat of arms, devices, and mottoes, as in the present illumination, near the upper edge of selected folios.