«CE LIVRE EST À MOI...»: OWNERS AND READERS OF THE « BOOK OF THE KNIGHT OF THE TOWER». The paper is an attempt to reconstruct the circle of owners/readers of the «Book of the knight of the Tower» (1371-1372) that was written by French... more
«CE LIVRE EST À MOI...»: OWNERS AND READERS OF THE « BOOK OF THE KNIGHT OF THE TOWER».
The paper is an attempt to reconstruct the circle of owners/readers of the «Book of the knight of the Tower» (1371-1372) that was written by French khight Geoffroy de La Tour Landry. The research is based on manuscripts of the end of the XIV-XV centuries that stored in the National library of France, the Parisian library the Arsenal, the Royal library of Belgium, etc., and analyses the possessors` signs: signatures, mottos, coats of arms. The material is added by data from the late medieval catalogues.
The results show that copies of the «Book of the Knight of the Tower» were in circulation in the circle of the highest aristocracy: they belonged to kings, dukes, court nobility. Two-thirds of all the owners were male. Thus, a family book written by a father for the instruction of his daughters became widespread in the noble circle, and with the advent of printing its success will be fixed among the bourgeois readers.
