Justin M. Sturgeon
(University of West Florida)

Abstract of Paper
presented at the 60th International Congress on Medieval Studies
(Kalamazoo, 2025)

Session on
“Deviant Images:
Text/Image Relationships in Medieval Manuscripts
(2): Sacred/Secular”

Sponsored by the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence

Organized by
Mildred Budny (Research Group on Manuscript Evidence)
and
Courtney Anne Berg (City University of New York)

2025 International Congress on Medieval Studies: Program

“Text & Image
in René d’Anjou’s ‘Livre des tournois’.
Mutually exegetic components”

This paper addresses René d’Anjou’s Livres des tournois (Tournament Book) as a holistic product of late-medieval court culture. I argue that the work can only be fully understood when text and image are considered as inseparable mutually exegetic components. The structure of the paper revolves around a series of focused case studies into critical aspects of the Livre des tournois that have either been understudied or are in need of reconsideration. The methodology I employ throughout the paper is decidedly interdisciplinary, and draws on a wide-range of visual, historical, material, and literary sources.

René d’Anjou’s Livre des tournois is admired for its authoritative description and intricately constructed, lavish images that depict the author’s idealized form of a late medieval tournament. The image cycle culminates in a single grand image depicting what at first appears to be a violent and chaotic tournament melee. Yet this seemingly chaotic visualization is carefully constructed from a visual language that can be unraveled from the reader’s interaction with the text and other images found within the manuscript. By employing examples taken from close visual and textual analysis of the surviving manuscripts, my paper will elucidate this visual language and its central importance in unravelling the rituals of René’s tournament.

By combining this methodology with an innovative application of visual theory, I will describe and show the unique manner in which the relationship between text and image addresses the courtly audience and invites the viewer to witness the tournament rituals. The level of detail, audience engagement, action and narrative revealed goes beyond conventional readings of this important work and sheds new light on the importance of the text/image relationship in this representation of a tournament and the construction of chivalric identity.

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