#capetians

These manuscripts were written in the same century contain the same stories about elephants and depict similar scenes: however, they were made 5,000 miles apart and were written in different languages. One was made for the king of France, the other may have been made in Mamluk Baghdad.

Image above: miniature with a king and an elephant from Raymond de Béziers translation of Kalila wa Dimna (now Paris, BnF, Latin 8504, f. 78v)

The text they contain is a series of animal fables about two jackals (or wolves, in European translations) who serve the lion king. These stories were probably originally told in Sanskrit in India, before being translated into Persian and then Arabic. The Arabic version is known as Kalila wa Dimna.

The stories continued to be told for centuries, and in the early 1300s, a physician called Raymond de Béziers translated the text into French at the behest of Queen Joan/Jeanne for her husband, King Philip IV ('the Fair') of France. (You can learn more about this text and manuscript in Nancy Freeman Regalado, 'Kalila et Dimna, Liber Regius', in Satura: Essays on Medieval Satire and Religion in Honor Of Robrt Raymo, eds. Nancy Reale and Ruth Sternglanz. Donington: Shaun Tyas, 2001, 103-23.) It is unclear if Raymond knew Arabic or if he was working from Spanish version of the text.

Philip IV and his children depicted at the beginning of Raymond's translation of Kalila wa Dimna. His daughter, Isabella, is depicted with the three lions of England because she was the queen of King Edward II of England (BnF Latin 8504, f. 1v).

It should be noted that medieval translators adapted as much as translated these works and gave themselves much more room for creativity than modern translators would take. Still, the stories-- and even the aspects that the illuminator chose to depict-- would have been recognizable many thousands of miles away in Baghdad, where these stories were still being told.

A few decades after Raymond made his book for the king of France, in 1354 a manuscript was made in Baghdad of the same tales, also featuring elephant imagery.

Image above: image with an elephant from a mid-14th century copy of Kalilah wa Dimna, now Oxford, Bodleian Library, Pococke 400, f. 148a.

And a few decades after that, around 1389, the story of a king and a white elephant from Kalilah wa Dimna was depicted in yet another deluxe copy of the stories made in Baghdad.

Image above: elephant herder with a white elephant and king from Cambridge, Corpus Christi, MS 578, f. 106r

So same century, same story, but many different artistic styles and rather different audiences!

Some major European/Mediterranean rulers in the year 1000 (with ages for perspective)!

I put this together for my 1000th post on my instagram sketch account, and I am very proud of it. Also very happy that I finally feel comfortable enough in my knowledge of clothing to draw figures from the Islamic world!

The lineup: Almanzor (62), hajib of Córdoba (the Caliph Hisham II was a puppet); Robert II of France (28); Richard II of Normandy (20); Aethelred II of England (32); Kenneth III of Scotland (40); Olaf I Tryggvason of Norway (36); Svein Forkbeard of Denmark (40)

Clementia of Hungary (1293-1328) was the younger sister of King Charles I of Hungary.

Clementia married the king Louis X of France on August 19, 1315, and was crowned in Reims on the 24th of the same month. She was widowed in June 1316, and on November 15, Clementia of Hungary gave birth to a son, who was immediately proclaimed King of France as John I. However, the newborn monarch lived only five days and died on November 20, being succeeded by Philip as Philip V of France.