Miracles de Nostre Dame
A verified public-domain excerpt for this text is still being set. The folio is catalogued and linked below; an original Sub Rosa rendering will follow.
What it is
A collection of 74 Marian miracles in French prose translated from various Latin sources by Jean Miélot, Philip the Good's personal secretary and chaplain, produced for the Burgundian court's intense Marian piety. The primary surviving copy is Bodleian Library, Douce MS 374, with grisaille miniatures attributed to the workshop of Jean le Tavernier; a second copy in Paris (BnF, fr. 9199) contains 66 grisailles attributed to Liévin van Lathem's workshop. The existence of at least two luxury copies suggests the work circulated within court and high clerical circles rather than being confined to a single owner. This devotion reflects the same Marian piety formalized in the Order of the Golden Fleece's dedication to the Immaculate Conception.
Why it still matters
The miracle narratives function as devotional meditations on intercession, mercy, and repentance; Christians who pray with Mary and the saints today will find these stories potent companions for reflection on how God acts through human weakness.
Kept alongside
The Imitation of Christ
De Imitatione Christi
Written by Thomas à Kempis in the Netherlands in the circle of the Brethren of the Common Life — the same Devotio Moderna movement that directly shaped Margaret of York's documented devotional practice and the piety of Isabella of Portugal at the Burgundian court — the Imitation became the most copied vernacular religious text in 15th-century Europe, circulating in thousands of manuscripts and hundreds of early printed editions. Its four books move from the vanity of worldly learning through conformity to Christ, inward consolation, and finally the sacrament of the Eucharist, forming a complete program of interior conversion. No specific ducal inventory copy has been identified linking this text to Valois-Burgundy by name, but its presence in court circles of this era and region is established through movement history rather than document. It remains the second most widely read Christian book after the Bible.
Prayer Book of Charles the Bold
Livre de prières de Charles le Téméraire
Court payment records of January and July 1469 document payments to scribe Nicolas Spierinc and illuminator Lieven van Lathem respectively for what is now J. Paul Getty Museum Ms. 37 — Charles the Bold's personal pocket prayer book. The small volume grew across two illumination campaigns to contain 47 miniatures and decorated borders on every page, the second campaign (c. 1480–1490) added by a French illuminator after Charles's death in 1477. Its contents are Christocentric and Marian: penitential collects, prayers before and after Communion, litanies, and suffrages to patron saints, reflecting the Burgundian court's ideal of intense private piety fused with luxury craftsmanship. As an intimate personal companion carried by a ruling duke, it represents the highest expression of late-medieval lay devotion.
Book Altar of Philip the Good
Livre-autel de Philippe le Bon
A singular object in the history of Burgundian devotion, this manuscript combines a portable painted diptych — showing the Trinity and the Coronation of the Virgin — with Latin and French prayers that Philip the Good used for daily quiet meditation until his death in 1467. Philip personalised it over decades by attaching 22 pilgrim badges whose lead offsets survive pressed into the pages, making it a layered record of his actual pilgrimage piety. Around 1500 it was enlarged with 39 additional miniatures by the Master of the Prayer Books of c. 1500, probably for a later Burgundian owner. The image-and-prayer format embodies the Devotio Moderna ideal that seeing and praying should be simultaneous acts.