ABSTRACT

In the summer of 1404, Charles the Noble (officially Charles III, King of Navarre and Count of Evreux) was flush with cash. He was in Paris to formally renounce his claim to Evreux and other possessions in Normandy, in return for which the French crown was giving him the title of Duke of Nemours, a guaranteed annual income of 12,000 livres, and a lump sum payment of 100,000 livres. He was thus, for the first time, in a financial position to become a patron of the arts in the manner of his friend and kinsman, Jean, Duc de Berry. 1 One of his first purchases seems to have been a book of hours which was on the market as it neared completion. We know it belonged to Charles because he had his coat of arms painted on 25 different pages. We assume he bought it on this particular one of the four trips he made to Paris during his lifetime because he had the money, and because the decoration matches other Parisian volumes from this same period.