Hi.
I'm Naomi Speakman, Curator of Late
Medieval Europe, and welcome to my corner.
[Music]
Last week we were looking at a composite
casket covered in different stories from
medieval romances, and we're continuing
our theme of medieval storytelling today
with another ivory casket.
The difference with this one is that it
explores a single story in great detail.
That story is taken from a 13th century
poem telling the tragic romance of the
Châtelaine de Vergy.
The tale begins on the lid.
The Châtelaine de Vergy was the niece of
the Duke of Burgundy, and the entire
story is based at the Burgundian court.
The Châtelaine was a noble woman and she
struck up a romance with a knight.
But they had to conduct this love affair
in secret.
The Châtelaine also had a small pet - it was
a dog.
And she would send the dog out to find
the knight as a signal to let him know
that she was alone.
This is what is happening on the lid.
Across it
are eight scenes and they're shown in
tiny detail in these quatrefoil
compartments.
In the top left
the story begins.
Here is the Châtelaine and she has the dog
sitting on her lap and she's talking to
the knight who is kneeling before her.
Across these four scenes the couple meet
and come together, aided by the dog.
On the bottom left you can see the
Châtelaine sends the dog out to find the
Knight.
And here,
they are lying in bed, curiously watched
on by the
dog. But all was not plain sailing.
The Duchess of Burgundy who is very much
the villain of this story also desired
the knight.
In this compartment, she tries to seduce
him. You can see that she's standing
before her bed which is revealed by
these raised hangings, but he rejects her,
and she's furious. She goes to her
husband – The Duke of Burgundy – and she
tells him that the knight has insulted
her.
The Duke can be made out throughout the
panels on this casket because he's
wearing this wonderful hood.
So,
the Duke goes to the knight and he is
angered that the knight has insulted his
wife.
The knight swears his loyalty to the
Duke and he lets the Duke in on the
secret and lets him know that he has this
love affair with the Châtelaine.
We move to the back of the casket for
the rest of the story.
The story begins on the left hand side.
Here is the Duke and here is the knight.
You can see the little dog is jumping up.
The knight is telling the Duke about how
the affair is conducted, and the aid of
the dog.
The Duke then watches the couple meet.
In the third scene the Duke is telling
his wife the Duchess about this secret
love affair. In his mind it is to
reassure her, but in reality, she is
infuriated. And in the final scene the
knight and the Châtelaine swear their love
to each other.
Things get a lot worse for this couple.
We can see that on the end of the casket.
This single panel shows a
dance taking place at a feast at court.
The sound of the music that they're
dancing to is implied
by the heralds who are both standing at
either end and are blowing trumpets.
You might just be able to make out that
their cheeks are inflated because they
are in the middle of making this music.
At the centre is the Duchess – she's the
one wearing the crown – and she's leaning
in and she whispers to the Châtelaine
that she hears that she has great skill
in training dogs.
This is a
hint that the Châtelaine's secret has been
revealed.
Moving to the front panel, this is where
the story comes to an end.
The Châtelaine is filled with shame and
she dies.
This is what happens in the very first
scene. On the left she's lying in her
deathbed. She's watched on by a shocked
servant.
And she's conveniently also died
alongside this sword.
The knight
comes before her and discovers that
she's dead. He takes the sword and he
kills himself. That's happening in the
second scene.
Next, the Duke arrives he sees the young
couple who are dead and he realises that
his wife is to blame.
This little scene is my favourite bit of
the whole casket and I’ll show you why.
Because
here is the Duke and he's leaning around
the border of the compartment he was
standing in.
Originally, this would have been bordered
by metal mounts which have since been
lost.
He leans behind it and he grabs the
sword which is embedded in the chest of
the knight, and he pulls it out.
And
there is the Duke and the Duke walks
around the casket to get to the next
scene. So, this box really is inviting us
to move around it to understand the
story.
That's exactly what we'll do.
Here is the final scene at court.
Those ladies were still dancing, the
feast was still taking place,
and the Duke goes before his wife and
beheads her.
It's a shocking end to this story,
and even the figures in the scene are
shocked. You can see the music has
stopped, the heralds’ trumpets are down,
and the figures are looking at each
other in astonishment.
Well, that concludes the story of the
Châtelaine de Vergy.
And I hope you'll all agree with me that
this is a surprising, shocking but
also an entertaining story, and maybe
it's one you hadn't heard of before. So, I
hope that when you see an object like
this you can appreciate it in a new
light.
It probably comes as no surprise that
this is also one of my favourite objects
in the medieval collection,
because it's so detailed, because the
story is so fascinating, but also because
of the characterisation.
This is like a medieval comic strip.
The personalities of the characters shine
through. We see the anger of the Duke, the
sadness of the Châtelaine.
And there's also an incredible
playfulness going on here, such as the
way that the Duke moves out of the
confinements of his own compartment
round what the carver has set in for the
mounts to reach into the scene before
him and grab the sword out of the
knight's chest.
This is a playful, inventive object and
we can only appreciate that when we look
at it on all its sides and understand
the story completely.
[Music]