The Pontifical of Renaud de Bar

Renaud de Bar and Jeanne de Toucy

Owners

Renaud de Bar, who served as canon at the Cathedral of Verdun and provost of St Mary Magdalene before becoming bishop of Metz in 1303, was a prominent member of the Lorraine nobility.

He was the son of Thibaut II, Count of Bar, and Jeanne de Châtillon-Toucy. His arms (azure two barbels addorsed crusily fitchy or) emblazoned on several folios, were overpainted by a later owner (e.g. fol. 1r). His mother’s arms of Chatillon-Toucy (gules three pales vair, in chief or four martlets gules) also occur in the manuscript (e.g. the initials D on fols. 4v and 40v). The initials on fols. 8v and 74v, which include fish motifs, possibly allude to the pair of barbels (carp-like fish) in the Bar family arms. The arms of Bar and Châtillon-Toucy are intact in the Prague part of the Pontifical (National Library of the Czech Republic, MS XXIII.C.120).

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1
Details of the overpainted coats of arms in the lower border with the corresponding near-infrared images (below). The contrasting appearance of azurite and ultramarine under infrared light – one dark, the other light – facilitates the identification of Renaud de Bar’s arms, which are intact in the Prague portion of the manuscript.
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2
Detail of a retouched area under magnification (7.5x). The missing top half of the original figure sitting on a branch has been roughly overpainted with blue and red leaves by the same hand who complete the unfinished miniatures in quire 15 (cf. fols. 98r and 100r).
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3
Detail of the church in the lower border under magnification (7.5x), showing the careful adjustments made in the final stages of the door’s decoration with respect to the original sketch visible underneath.
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4
Detail of a gilded leaf under magnification (32x), showing the blue bole containing indigo.

Lay people praying at a reliquary (Office for the Dedication of a Church)

A bishop blesses a church in the historiated initial O and kneels at a prayer desk to say his devotions in the historiated initial V. The full bar border is decorated with male and female figures, animals, birds, a pair of jousting hybrids and coats of arms that have been overpainted. A bishop, accompanied by two acolytes (assistants), blesses a church in the bas-de-page.

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