Vidal Mayor: A Visualisation ofthe Juridical Miniature

Gwendollyn Gout Grautoff*

* École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, 54 Boulevard Raspail, 75006 Paris.

Encompassing one of the richest programmes of illumination in a customarylaw code, the manuscript Vidal Mayor is a thirteenth-century compilationof Aragonese law. Its illumination programme, which includes numerouscourt scenes, is a perfect laboratory for a serial analysis. This essay explainsthe structure of the image space and its function. It also analyses the represen-tation of the miniatures’ main characters: the providers of justice.

1 Interest in the juridical miniature has grown in the last few years. The first majorcatalogue of juridical images, ’The Corpus of the Miniatures of Decretum Gratiani’ byAnthony Melnikas, published in 1975, did not attract the attention it merited (AnthonyMelnikas, The Corpus of the Miniatures of Decretum Gratiani, Studia Gratiana, vol. 16,Rome, 1975). Jean-Claude Schmitt’s study of a Decretum Gratiani, MS. 133 of the WaltersArt Gallery, on which this essay is based, pioneered a renewed interest in these canon lawimages: Jean-Claude Schmitt, ’Le miroir du canoniste: Les images et le texte dans unmanuscrit médiéval’, Annales Economies Sociétés Civilisations, no. 6, 1993: 1471-95. (The

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Journal of the Walters Art Gallery, vol. 49-50, 1991-92: 67-82). On the customary side,there have been important studies of the suggestive images of the Sachsenspiegel, in par-ticular the work of R. Schmidt-Wiegand. For Spanish manuscripts, more recently, aninteresting study of several Catalan customary law manuscripts from an art historicalperspective has been published: Gaspar Coll I Rosell, Manuscripts Juridics I il.luminacio,Barcelona, 1995. And within a larger perspective, on the relationship between law and itsimage,there is the insightful book by Robert Jacob, Images de la justice, Paris, 1994; alsoCostas Douzinas and Lynda Nead (eds), Law and the Image, Chicago, 1999.2 Harold J. Berman, Law and Revolution: The Formation of the Western Legal Tradition,

Cambridge, MA, 1983: 4-5.

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3 Jean-Claude Schmitt, La raison des gestes dans l’occident médiéval, Paris, 1990: 25.4 The Vidal Mayor manuscript, was discovered in 1936 by Gunnar Tylander in the

private library of Dyson Perrins. Tylander published the text and a glossary in 1956. Themanuscript was subsequently sold to the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, where it re-mains. In 1989, a facsimile edition accompanied by a useful volume of essays was pub-lished by the government of the province of Aragon: Vidal Mayor & Vidal Mayor, Estudios,Huesca, 1989.5 The functions of an image can operate at three levels: the image as an object for usage;

the image as a representation of the world and of society; and the image as attached to anobject with its own function. Cf. Jérome Baschet, ’Introduction: L’image-Objet’, in JéromeBaschet and Jean-Claude Schmitt (eds), L’image: Fonctions et usages des images dans l’occidentmédiéval, Actes du 6è ’International Workshop on Medieval Societies,’ Centro EttoreMajorana (Erice, Sicile, 17-23 Octobre 1992), Paris, 1996.6 As Jérome Baschet puts it, ’If it is true that images think, it must be added that they

think between themselves. The serial study is consequently a necessity .... The confron-tation of images from a same series is indispensable to the analysis of each one’s meaning,because there is sense only in difference, or rather in the dialectic between regularities anddivergences.’ Jérome Baschet, ’Inventivité et sérialité des images médiévales: Pour une

approche iconographique èlargie’, Annales: Histoire, Sciences Sociales, vol. 51(1), January-February, 1996:111.

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7 The bishop had already participated in the formulation of Valence’s customary codein 1238.

’ As opposed to a shorter version of the fueros approved by the Cortes of Huesca, thatprevailed in Aragon.

’ J.L. Lacruz Berdejo, ’Dos Textos interesantes para la historia de la compilación deHuesca’, Anuario de Historia del Derecho Español (hereafter AHDE), vol. 18, 1947: 540-41.

10 See fn. 25;

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11 J. Delgado Echeverría, ’Vidal Mayor, un libro de fueros del siglo XIII’, in VidalMayor, Estudios: 66.

12 A. Perez Martin, Fori Aragonum vom Codex von Huesca (1247) bis zur Reform PbilippsII (1547) nach der Ausgabe Zaragoza 1476-77: 13, note 43.

13 Jaime del Hospital, Observantiae, (proemium, 11), cited in Martinez Diez, ’En tornoa los fueros de Aragon y las cortes de Huesca de 1247’, AHDE, vol. 50, 1980: 81.

14 60 per cent of the total number of images.15 This is so for 92 per cent of the miniatures. The remaining 8 per cent are vignettes

which were placed outside the scriptural box when the scribe did not leave enough spacefor a historical initial; these are concentrated in the first book (fols 9v, 22r, 24r, 27r, 28v,29v, 31v, 32r, 36r, 41v and 170r). On fols 21r, 41v and 44v, the illuminator could placethe image in the small space left for the capital letters, which accounts for the smaller sizeof the miniatures. On fol. 21v he even doubled the image by adding another larger vi-gnette on the bottom of the column, with a scene very similar to the smaller one insidethe letter F that starts the fuero. The other case is on fol. 126r, where the scribe left ablank space in the middle of a fuero, which will be discussed below.

16 ’The image is the true founder of the text because it is the text initial : one cannot readthe text without not only looking at the image first, but reading it too since it is the textalso,’ Schmitt, ’Le miroir du canoniste’: 1476.17 As is also the case for the other known illuminated manuscript of Aragonese fueros in

which a king or a judge is depicted at the beginning of each chapter. Fori Aragonum,London, British Library, MS. Add 36618.

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18 Or 53 per cent of the miniatures of which 39 (47 per cent) represent a court of justicepresided over by a judge or a king.

19 Or 47 per cent of the miniatures of which 52 (70 per cent) include a court of justice.20 ’De usu I habitatione es assaber de usage I de abitamiento’, Vidal Mayor, Book IV,

folios 164v to 165r. The initial should be an S/eruitud puede ganar ....

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21 ’De usufructo es assaber auer usofructo’, Vidal Mayor, Book IV, folios 165r to 165v.

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22 ’Depositi es assaber de la cosa que es dada ad alcar’, Vidal Mayor, Book V, folios 174vto 175v.

23 ’Nec uir pro uxor pro uiro aliquatenus puniatur. Que ni el marldo por la muiller nilamuiller por el marido non deue ser puynnido’, Vidal Mayor, Book II, folios 91v and 92r.

24 Schmitt, ’La culture de l’imago’: 4.25 The illustration and definition of the law through practical cases was one of the

fundamental aspects of medieval thought as inherited from moral philosophy and Romanlaw. F. Calasso, ’Casua Legis. Motivi logici é storici del diritto comune’, in Rivista distoria del diritto italiano, vol. 29,1956; Ennio Cortese, La Norma Giuridica. Spunti teoricinel diritto comune classico, Rome, 1962; Albert R. Jonsen & Stephen Toulmin, TheAbuseof Casuistry. A History of Moral Reasoning, Berkeley, 1988.

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26 On the different uses of the term ’fuero’: as jurisdiction, law, right and privilege (andas opposed to ’derecho’, as in common law), A. García Gallo, ’Aportación al estudio delos fueros’, AHDE, vol. 26, 1956: 387-446.

27 Jacob, Images de la justice: 9.28 The questions of legitimisation, representation and sight are part of a larger body of

work in progress. The importance of ’sight’ in Alfonso de Castilla’s juridical works hasbeen studied by Marta Madero, ’Languages et images du procès dans l’Espagne médiévale’,printed separately.

29 In majesty: in the prologue miniature where the manuscript has been presented tothe king (fol. lr) and in the miniature illuminating Book VII containing feudal law, theranks of nobility and their relation to the king (fol. 223v).

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30 On the delimitation of gestures as a demonstration of power, Schmitt, La raison desgestes dans l’occident médiéval.

31 ’De tregua et pace es assaber de tregua et de’, Vidal Mayor, Book VIII, fols 237r-237v.The initial is an E/I seynnor rey don Pedro....

32 See Figure 7. 33 The iconographic symbol chosen by Jaime 1st of Aragon is the sword. And the Vidal

Mayor text notes that lawyers are knights: ’cauaieros de su propia cauaillería’ (cit. VidalMayor, fol. 38v). The armour of laws, and the jurists as knights is a theme already noticedby Ernst Kantorowicz ’Kingship under the Impact of Scientific Jurisprudence,’ in Se-lected Studies, New York, 1965: 153.34 For Figure 4, see note 25. Vidal de Caneyas stresses in his prologue the fact that he, as

a churchman, did not write the cases requiring a bloody punishment. He explains thatthe king’s notaries added this fueros. Vidal Mayor, fol.2r

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35 Kantorowicz, ’Kingship under the Impact of Scientific Jurisprudence,’: 161.36 Laurent Mayali, ’Lex animata. Rationalisation du pouvoir politique et science juridique

(Xlle-XIVe siècles)’, in A. Gouron and A. Rigaudière (eds), Renaissance du pouvoir législatifet genèse de l’etat, Montpellier, 1988: 157, 164.37 A sick man is not obliged to attend the court if he cannot attend church. ’Forus per

se. Fuero por si’, Vidal Mayor, Book II, fols 83r-83v. Initial S/I el baille o... The otherthree images are in fol. 31v. ’De fecijs. De las fiestas; the text states that trials cannot occuron the days of religious feasts. If the bailiff fixes such a date for a trial by mistake, the trial

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takes place a day later. The image reveals two pairs of figures: to the left, a cleric and astanding judge seem to dismiss a lawyer and his client. Fol. 129r: ’Istud forum nonditauimus, es assaber: Este fuero non dictamos’; the judge witnesses a judiciary battle, hisjuridical skill is not being addressed. It is one of three chapters in the book where Vidalde Caneyas reminds his readers that as a churchman he did not write the fueros withblood punishments. And fol. 232r ’De munitionibus construendis, es assaber: De fazerfortalezas’, where the judge verifies the construction or repair of a fortification.

38 ’The armchair, which is the replica of the throne, was considered as a honorific seatand a mark of high status until the fourteenth century. This role and its prolongations arealso found in the representations of the throne, written or figurative.’ Galienne Francastel,Le droit au trône: un problème de préeminence dans l’art chrétien d’Occident du IV au XIIsiécles, Paris, 1973.

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39 Assi como la corona en la cabeça de Aaron et la resplandor en meyos del firmament,alumpnando todo el firmament del mundo, assi resplandece el dreito en la real majestad,en la qual es establecida en tal guisa que assi como la fuent en los rios, conuiene d’eill quedescienda el dreito et el uso del dreito en todos los otros. Vidal Mayor, Book I, fol 66r.

40 The other two cases are in Fol. 49, De iurisdictione omnium, co es: Del dreito detodos los alcaldes’, and Fol. 183r, ’De innominatis contractibus, es assaber: De los contratosque non son nompnados.’

41 ’De re iudicada, es assaber: De cosa iugada,’ Vidal Mayor, Book III, fol.133r. Initial P/or razon de los instrumentos...

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42 As a response to the strong opposition to the new jurisprudence in his kingdom, theking sought to concentrate in his hands the control of the following procedures: non-legal ways of creating norms; the expedition of written instruments; juridical decisionsthrough the system of appeals; the order of juridical professionals; and the integration ofjuridical themes not contemplated in the texts. Jesús Morales Arrizabalaga, ’Formulacióny hermenéutica de la foralidad aragonesa (1247-1437)’, in E. Gastón Sanz et al., Estudiosde derecho aragonés, Cuadernos de cultura aragonesa, 16, Zaragoza: 47-100.

43 ’De iudicis, co es de los iuditios’, Vidal Mayor, Book II, fol. 72v. Initial N/inguniuyz...

44 ’Iuditios’ means trial or judgement.

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45 Arrizabalaga, ’Formulación y hermenéutica de la foralidad aragonesa (1247-1437)’:85-86.