Guelders-France. Another Connection around 14001 Herman Th . Colenbrander Independent Scholar, Amsterdam, Netherlands Around 1396, Johan Maelwael, and his nephews some years later successively, went to France, the mightiest kingdom of the West, to seek their fortune. However, there were more connections between Guelders and France at the time. In 1404 the brother of the French king, Louis d’Orléans, arranged a marriage between Reinout, duke of Guelders and his niece Marie d’Harcourt, and 16 August of the following year she arrived at the castle of Rozendaal where she was heartedly welcomed.2 A miniature of Mary in the prayer-book the duchess had written in Dutch in 1415 was related to a drawing in Uppsala and considered as proof for the influence of the French court culture she had introduced in Guelders.3 Th is perception was further enhanced by a few let- ters exchanged between Marie and the duke of Berry.4 But also at a lower level in society there were connections. At the brutal murder attack on Louis d’Orléans on 23 November 1407, one of his écuyers who had tried to protect him, was also killed. His name was Jacob van Melkeren, born in Herssen near 1 For a full discussion of the proposition advanced here I would like to refer to my doctoral thesis upheld on 1 December 2006 at the University of Amsterdam, entitled Op zoek naar de Gebroeders Van Limburg. De Très Riches Heures in het Musée Condé in Chantilly, Het Wapenboek Gelre in de Koninklijke Bibliotheek Albert I in Brussel en Jan Maelwael en zijn neefj es Polequin, Jehannequin en Herman van Limburg. 2 Gerard Nijsten, Het hof van Gelre. Cultuur ten tijde van de hertogen uit het Gulikse en Egmondse huis (1371-1473) (2nd edn.; Kampen 1993), pp. 98-9, 269. English edition: Gerard Nijsten, In the Shadow of Burgundy: the court of Guelders in the late Middle Ages (Cambridge 2004). 3 Th e Prayer-book is now divided between Berlin, MS Germ. Qu. 42 and Vienna, Cod. 1908, the miniature in question being f. 19v. of the Berlin part, cf. De Gebroeders Van Limburg. Nijmeegse meesters aan het Franse hof 1400-1416, ed. Rob Dückers & Pieter Roelofs (Gent 2005), pp. 254-5, no. 24 (drawing in Uppsala), pp. 250-1, no. 22-3 (Prayer-book of Mary of Guelders). 4 For the correspondence, cf: Nijsten, op. cit. (n. 2: 1993), pp. 98-9. 132 herman th. colenbrander Nijmegen. His family was later on, in 1415, compensated by John the Fearless, duke of Burgundy and perpetrator of the murder.5 A further connection is the fact that Jean de Berry bought from a certain Jean de Nymègue a ring with an emerald fly in 1403 and between 1403 and 1408 he bought again from this same Jean de Nymègue a costly chessboard. An identification of Jean de Nymègue with Jehannequin of Limbourg, one of the Limbourg brothers, is unlikely because of the age of the latter. However, it has to be noted that later on, in 1413, Jehannequin inscribed himself in the guild of the Parisian goldsmiths.6 Th e examples put forward here deal with incidental cases, from which little can be concluded as to the broader cultural influences between Guelders and France, nor, for that matter, the reciprocal stylistic impact on, for example, the art of painting. Th e existing generalised opinions on these matters must be qualified as rather premature. Given the occasion here to broaden the scope somewhat, I would like to point out a hitherto unnoticed example of a con- nection between Guelders and France. One of the great treasures of the Royal Library at Brussels is the Wapenboek Gelre, an armorial compiled by the herald Gelre (MS 15652-56). Th e manuscript was mentioned and illustrated in the catalogue of the Nijmegen exhibition, but the manuscript itself could not be present since it was on display elsewhere.7 It contains a large illustration of the Emperor and his electors (illus. 1). Th is illustra- tion is a lightly coloured pen drawing and is located, by way of title-page, at the beginning of that part of the armorial which contains some 1800 coats of arms of the nobility of the German Empire, the kingdom of France and other kingdoms, duchies and counties. Th e manuscript was never completed 5 P. Raymond, ‘Enquête du prévôt de Paris sur l’assassinat de Louis Ier du duc d’Orléans’, in: Bibliothèque de l’École des Chartes, 26 (1865), pp. 215-19, esp. p. 217; P. Champion, La vie de Charles d’Orléans (1394-1465), vol. 1 (Paris 1911), pp. 45-6. His name was also spelled as Jacques de Meckeren and Jacob de Merré; B. Schnerb, Jean sans Peur. Le prince meurtrier (Paris 2005), pp. 209, 233 (Archives du Nord, Lille (ADN) B 659 nr.15 294). 6 ‘Un tablier et eschaquier d’argent doré et de cristaulx, garni d’eschaz d’argent doré et blanc. IIIc frans’: J. Guiffrey, Inventaires de Jean Duc de Berry (1401-1416 ), 2 vols. (Paris 1894-6), vol. 1, p. 90, no. 296, and on the 13th of September 1403 in Mehun-sur-Yèvre: ‘Un annel d’or ou il a une mouche faicte d’esmeraude. .’ (ibid. vol. 1, p. 123, no. 401); Ph. Henwood, ‘Les orfèvres parisiens pendant le règne de Charles VI (1380-1422)’, in: Bulletin archéologique du Comité des travaux historiques et scientifiques, 15 (1981), pp. 85-180, esp. p. 160; E. Kovács, ‘Hansse Melluel páriszi ötvós, 1413’, in: Müveszettörténetí éresitö, 33, 1 (1984), pp. 42-5. 7 De Gebroeders Van Limburg, op. cit. (n. 3), pp. 66-7. At the time of the Nijmegen exhibi- tion, the codex was on display in an exhibition of highlights from the Royal Library, Brussels. .