Somme le Roi (Le Livre des vices et des vertus)
Somme le roi — Le Livre des vices et des vertus
Cy commence le livre qui est appellé le Mireur du monde, que aucuns appellent Vices et vertus...
Our renderingHere begins the book called the Mirror of the World, which some call Vices and Virtues...
What it is
Originally composed in 1279 by Frère Laurent d'Orléans, Dominican confessor of King Philip III, this vernacular summa of vices, virtues, Ten Commandments, articles of faith, and Lord's Prayer became a standard moral-formation text at the Valois court and beyond. Multiple manuscripts are documented in the Valois royal library, including BnF fr. 1802 listed in Louvre library inventories of 1380–1413 and BnF fr. 1134 illuminated by the Master of the Apocalypse of Jean de Berry; a copy appears in the 1396 will codicil of Blanche of Navarre. Translated into English as 'The Book of Vices and Virtues' and into several other vernaculars, it circulated far beyond the Valois court and served both as a devotional guide and as a tutor's text for young nobles. Its reach across courts and religious houses distinguishes it from single-commission books of hours as a genuinely wide-circulation devotional work.
Why it still matters
Its plain, structured treatment of the Ten Commandments, capital vices, cardinal virtues, and the Lord's Prayer makes it a practical moral and spiritual formation guide today, particularly suited for catechesis or the examination of conscience before confession.
Kept alongside
Hours of Jeanne d'Évreux
Heures de Jeanne d'Évreux
Made by Jean Pucelle c. 1324–28 for Jeanne d'Évreux, queen consort of the last Capetian king Charles IV, this tiny masterpiece (9 × 6 cm, 209 folios) was bequeathed in Jeanne's 1371 will directly to her nephew Charles V of France — documented in her own words as 'un bien petit livret d'oraisons que le roy Charles… avoit faict faire pour Madame, que Pucelle enlumina' — confirming Valois custody from that point. It pairs Infancy and Passion scenes in innovative grisaille, and contains the Hours of the Virgin, the Office of Saint Louis, Penitential Psalms, and a litany, making it one of the richest lay devotional programmes of the entire medieval period. Its miniature scale — small enough to cradle in a palm — embodies prayer as an act of intimate personal attention rather than public display.
Fifteen Joys of the Virgin
Les XV Joies Nostre Dame
A vernacular prayer in fifteen stanzas, each opening with an invocation to the Virgin and concluding with Ave Maria, meditating in sequence on fifteen joyful mysteries of her life from the Annunciation through the Assumption. Written in French rather than Latin, it appears alongside the Seven Requests to Our Lord as one of the key vernacular texts in Parisian Books of Hours, and was standard in that tradition from at least the 1350s. Its vernacular character suggests regular oral use by noble family members — including children and those with limited Latin — for whom the Latin Hours were supplemented by devotional French texts. The prayer's fifteen-part structure as a meditation on the Virgin's joys is a direct ancestor of the Rosary's Joyful Mysteries.
Psalter and Hours of Bonne of Luxembourg
Psalterium et Horae Bonnae de Luxemburgo
This tiny psalter and prayer book (126 × 88 mm), attributed to Jean Le Noir, was made c. 1348–49 for Bonne of Luxembourg, Duchess of Normandy, wife of the future John II and mother of both Charles V and Jean, Duc de Berry, making it a foundational Valois dynastic devotional object. Her heraldic arms combining Luxembourg and Valois decorate the borders alongside striking memento mori imagery — the Three Living and Three Dead — and miniatures illustrating personal prayers. Bonne died of plague in 1349 before she could become queen, giving the manuscript an intimate poignancy as a last testimony of early Valois piety. It is now held at The Cloisters, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.