RAYMOND OF PENYAFORT (1175-1275), Quia tractare intendimus, with TABLES OF CONSANGUINITY AND AFFINITY [Paris, mid-13th century].

A stunning double page from a 13th-century canon law manuscript depicting and describing the concept of kinship and marriage eligibility. The illumination is attributable to the Vie de Saint Denis atelier, named after BnF, ms. nouv. Acq. Fr. 1098. The atelier was enormously prolific in Paris from 1230-1250, and the hallmarks of its style are evident in the present miniatures: an intense and unique palette of Pompeian reds and blues; elongated figures with confidently delineated silhouettes and billowing drapery painted in darker tones of the same colour; heads with large jaws and even features.

The text is the Quia tractare intendimus written by the Spanish Dominican friar Raymond of Penyafort c.1235. As is the case with the present leaves, the text and diagrams were almost always executed independently – usually as a separate bifolium or single leaf – for insertion at the appropriate location in a Decretals or book of canon law.

Provenance:
ERIC KORNER (1893-1980), nos 23-24 in his collection, bought from Heinrich Eisemann. His sale, Sotheby’s, 19 June 1990, lot 5.

Measurements:
340 x 230mm (each leaf, originally a bifolium).

TWO LARGE MINIATURES DEPICTING THE TABLES OF CONSANGUINITY AND AFFINITY. The first (154 x 96mm) with a king holding an arrow-like chevron containing a portrait of a man and the blood relatives with whom marriage is prohibited; the Table of Affinity (153 x 98mm) with a married couple above a panel containing the relatives by marriage who cannot fulfil the role of second spouse upon the death of the first. Some yellowing and staining to four corners of leaves presumably from mount.

Bibliography:
S. Worby, Law and Kinship in Thirteenth-Century England, 2010, esp. Appendix 1.
S. L’Engle and R. Gibbs, Illuminating the Law, 2001, pp.69-71.
R. Branner, Manuscript Painting in Paris during the Reign of Saint Louis, 1977, pp.87-93 and 224-7.
I. Da Rosa Pereira, ‘Lectura arborum consanguinitatis et affinitatis magistri Ioannis Egitaniensis’, Studia Gratiana, XIV, 1967, pp. 158-159.
S. Kuttner, ‘The Barcelona edition of St Raymond's first treatise of canon law’, Seminar. An annual extraordinary number of the Jurist, VIII, 1950, p.54.

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