Visual Arts and the Auld Alliance

Bryony Coombs is Renaissance Teaching Fellow in History of Art at the University of Edinburgh. Her recent publications include ‘Material Diplomacy: French Manuscripts and the Stuart Kings of Scotland, Edinburgh University Library, MS 195’ SHR (2019), and ‘From Dunbar to Rome: John Stuart, Duke of Albany and his Contribution to the Theory and Practice of Military Science in Scotland and Italy, 1514-1536.’ PSAS (2019), which was awarded the Murray Medal for History.

Visual Arts and the Auld Alliance offers an original and sophisticated exploration of the artistic and literary patronage of Scottish émigré in late medieval and early modern France. The volume places particular emphasis on visual imagery as a means to convey and depict ideas about individual, lineage and collective ‘national’ identities, the histories that underpinned them, and the nature of the relationship between the French and Scottish realms. The rich array of visual images discussed, including many previously unknown to Scottish historians, is used to analyse and interrogate the way in which these families and individuals articulated their sense of Scottish identity within a French milieu. The study rests on an impressive scholarly engagement with manuscripts held in a variety of French archives. Coombs marshals her evidence deftly and perceptively to add new insights and nuance to our understanding of the cultural connections that ran alongside and deepened the political and military ties between the two kingdoms. Through a series of well-chosen case studies, the book investigates the interplay between art, politics and historical understanding, using visual material to cast new light on the framing of individual and collective identity. This is an important study that will be required reading for anyone interested in the cultural and political history of late medieval and early modern Scotland. More generally, Coombs’s work offers a striking contribution to wider debates about the potential use of art to convey, express or encourage a range of political and cultural ideas and to articulate notions of both difference and belonging.

• List of IllustrationsPreface and AcknowledgementsIntroduction: Images, Identity, and an Auld Alliance, 1420-15401. Scottish Princesses in France and Brittany: Authority, Agency, and Reputation1.1 Margaret Stuart, Dauphine of France: Devotion in Text and Stone1.2 Isabella Stuart, Duchess of Brittany: Manuscripts and Familial Memory2. Franco-Scottish Mercenaries and the Arts: Establishing Status and Creating Identities2.1 Bérault Stuart d’Aubigny: Politics and Self-fashioning2.2 Robert Stuart d’Aubigny: A Scottish Maréchal de France2.3 Dictating the Art of War3. Franco-Scottish Diplomacy and the Arts: Knowledge Acquisition and Exchange3.1 Sir William Monypenny: Diplomacy and Espionage3.2 A Virgil Manuscript as a Diplomatic Gift for James III3.3 Bérault Stuart d’Aubigny: Cartography and a Diplomatic Dossier3.4 Robert Stuart d’Aubigny and James V in France4. A Franco-Scottish Cleric and his Breviary: Patronage, Piety, and Identity4.1 The Monypenny Breviary: Popes, Prisons and Porcupines4.2 The Monypenny Breviary: Catching the Light5. A Franco-Scottish Regent and the Arts: The Patronage of John Stuart, Duke of Albany5.1 Albany and the Literary Arts of Bremond Domat5.2 Albany and the Sainte-Chapelle at Vic-le-Comte5.3 Albany and Military Science5.4 Blood and Vellum: Genealogies and Gift Exchange as DiplomacyConclusion: Franco-Scots as an Imagined Political Community