The Crusades: Les Passages d'Oultremer

The Crusades: Les Passages d'Oultremer

Sébastien Mamerot (ca. 1418–90) was the author of the largest medieval work written on the Crusades: Les Passages faiz oultre mer par les François contre les Turcqs et autres Sarrazins et Mores oultre marins, which translates to “Overseas Expeditions made by the French against the Turks and Saracens and Moors” in English. It consists of nearly six hundred pages of text written in two wide columns. The owner, Louis de Laval (ca. 1411–89), commissioned the French master Jean Colombe (ca. 1430 – ca. 1493) to illuminate the text with 145 miniatures, including some of the most iconic imagery of medieval manuscript art, e.g. the scene of the Council of Clermont on folio 19r. The result is a monumental work that is distinguished both for its textual content and the artistic refinement of its décor. A portrait of Laval appears on the first page, depicting the French nobleman and general as a thin, elderly man who is being presented the manuscript by a kneeling Mamerot. The dedication is precisely dated to Thursday, January 12th, 1473.