Pictures of Tents and Pavilions in the 14th-century Grandes Chroniques
de France
These pictures were
downloaded from the
Bibliotheque Nationale de France's on-line exhibit of
manuscript illuminations,
The Age of Charles V.
Note that although many of the events described in these pictures took place
earlier, the pictures come from a 14th-century ms.
and should probably be taken to indicate 14th-century style in pavilioning,
armor, etc.
-
The Surrender of Acre to Philip Augustus
and Richard Coeurdelion, 1191. A tent with no visibile means of
support. Note the semee of fleurs-de-lis decorating the tent roof.
I don't know how literally to take it: the semee is in the two
dimensions of the picture, not in the three dimensions of a tent roof.
-
Louis the Pious driving away Pepin I.
The "tent" in this picture is highly stylized, but what you
can see of its internal structure looks more like a North American tipi
than like anything I've seen before in a European source.
-
The Assassination of Sigibert I. Another tent
with no visible poles, but it clearly has a ridge and two finials, which
strongly suggests a double-poled oval. The decoration near the top is a
combination of stripes and "scale" shapes, and I think it would be much
easier to paint than to applique (even the stripes, if you consider that
they have to go around a half-cone at each end).
-
Charles the Fat and messengers. This time
there is what looks like a center-pole. Then again, there are
also similar things on a diagonal at the sides of the tent. The latter
are too far out to all meet at the peak, as in the Louis the Pious tent
above; they could be guy ropes drawn big, or side poles drawn at the
wrong angle, or God knows what.
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Stephen Bloch / sbloch@boethius.adelphi.edu
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