: Manuscript Acquisition by the Burgundian Court and the Market for Books in the Fifteenth-Century Netherlands

The collection of manuscripts of the Valois dukes of Burgundy belonged to the largest collections of the fifteenth century. Of the 867 manuscripts mentioned in the inventory drawn up after Duke Philip the Good's death in 1467, some 600 had been acquired by himself, since the inventory of his father's collection from 1420 numbered around 250 manuscripts.1 Nearly half the total inventoried in 1467 still exist, the larger part, 247, being preserved in the Brussels Royal Library. These have been described in an extensive catalogue which is limited, however, to the illuminated manuscripts.2 Around a hundred of the remaining manuscripts are to be found in another Brussels catalogue.3