“Creating a public identity in medieval Paris: the patronage of Blanche of Navarre”
Marguerite Keane

The French queen Blanche of Navarre, wife of Philip VI, was married only one year before her husband’s death in 1350.  As a widow she spent 40 years at the French court crafting a significant public identity which spoke both to her rights as a French dowager queen and her interests in the political ambitions of her own family.  Her most famous role was as a mediator between her own family of the kings of Navarre, especially her brother, Charles le Mauvais, and her stepson and stepgrandson, the Valois kings of France, Jean le Bon and Charles V.

Works of art were critical for Blanche’s creation of a public identity in Paris and Ile-de-France.  Most famous are the stained glass windows produced for a cathedral of Évreux, but also important were panel paintings commissioned for the abbey church at Saint-Denis and an enormous number of illuminated manuscripts catalogued in Blanche’s will.  These works consistently make reference to contemporary political events and indicate an overriding interest in political position and dynastic legitimacy.  I argue that the evidence of her commissions shows a conscious effort by Blanche to use works of art to create a political identity for herself that spoke to her own rights and those of her daughter, as well as the nascent political ambitions of the Navarre.