Charles The Bold

A historical and biographical study of Charles's personality and his role as ruler, 1467-1477, discussing his relationship with his subjects and his neighbours, and giving particular attention to his imperial plans and projects and his clash with the Swiss.

In January 1469, the accounts of Duke Charles the Bold of Burgundy (reigned 1467-77) record a payment to the noted scribe Nicolas Spierinc 'for having written ... some prayers for my lord.' Seven months later, the same accounts record a payment to the illuminator Lievin van Lathern for twenty-five miniatures plus borders and decorated initials in the same manuscript. In this study, the late Antoine de Schryver - an internationally renowned art historian - presents a thoroughly researched and balanced argument suggesting that the documents refer to the exquisite prayer book of Charles the Bold which can now be found in the collection of the J. Getty Museum. --book jacket.

Possibly the greatest novel published in Canada in 2004 — the first in a historic series. It’s as if Dickens or Balzac — or Rohinton Mistry — had decided to write the book that summed up life in east-end Montreal. This is the first volume of a quartet that has taken Quebec by storm, selling over forty-five thousand copies. On the very first page, we meet Charles Thibodeau being born. It’s 1966 and the rest of Montreal is more excited by the fact that a new subway system is opening, but his birth is a big event for Charles’s parents and for their working-class neighbours. Sadly, Charles’s mother dies when he is four, her funeral interrupted by War Measures Act soldiers on the streets. Soon young Charles, like a younger Huck Finn, is fending for himself. While he adopts a stray dog, Boff, in turn he is taken away from his drunken, violent father and becomes part of the Fafard family nearby. His adventures follow thick and fast — at school, where he avoids becoming a teacher’s pet, despite being smart, in a part-time job where he encounters a pederast, and at summer camp, where he establishes himself as a rebel. By the end of the book, he has fully earned his title, Charles the Bold, leaving us eager to follow his further adventures. But the real hero of this book is Montreal, and its scores of memorable, lively characters who leap off the page. Like Gabrielle Roy in The Tin Flute, Yves Beauchemin has given us an unforgettable portrait of life in the francophone east end — with more to come in this ambitious and richly rewarding saga.

This is a definitive study of Charles the Bold's diplomatic and military relations with the Italian states, taking full account of economic policy. The book makes extensive use not only of the great mass of diplomatic correspondence in the archives of Florence, Mantua, Milan, Modena and Venice, but also of Charles' financial records in the archives of Brussels and Lille. The author's mastery of these primary sources is complemented by judicious use of a wide range of secondary material. Aspects of Charles the Bold's relations with Italy have been considered in earlier literature, but no study has before dealt with them comprehensively at any length. This book fills that gap and places Charles' reign in its wider European context.

The references to Charles the Bold's work, which are largely drawn from the accounts of the chambres des comptes at Lille and Brussels, amply illustrate the aesthetic preferences of the Burgundian nobility. All the relevant documents, most of which have not been published before, appear in appendix I. The second part of the book reviews the votive portraits of Charles the Bold. The circumstances surrounding the commission of the Liege statuette - Loyet's sole surviving work - are discussed in detail, and all documents relating to the statuette are included in appendix II. In the second chapter of part II, the focus is on the statuette's iconography, which is unique for a votive gift. Charles's motives are further investigated in the final chapter of part II, which discusses the votive portraits that he donated to other shrines. In the third and final part, the attention shifts to votive gifts, and more specifically to the genre of votive portraits.