Nuns, images, and the ideals of women's monasticism: Two paintings from the Cistercian convent of Flines (*).

This study explores the dynamics between visual images and expectations for feminine monasticism in northern Europe via two paintings from the Cistercian convent of Flines. It argues that abbess Jeanne de Boubais commissioned the images for clerics who had promoted reform of Flines, in order to suggest compliance with the mandates of the program and the integral place of the convent within Cistercian monasticism. In the wake of the dissolution of several convents that had resisted reform, conveying a desire to yield to the Order must have seemed crucial for the community's survival

Even as recent studies on religious women of medieval and renaissance Europe have done much to broaden our knowledge of convent life, (1) a considerable amount of work remains to be done. Such is the case with the arts. One area that needs further attention is the relationship between visual images and clerical expectations for nuns' lives. This subject is the focus of the present investigation of two panel paintings commissioned by Jeanne de Boubais, abbess of the Cistercian convent of Flines, located near Douai in the French-speaking, Burgundian controlled south Netherlandish province of Hainault. From its foundation in 1234 and reaching into the seventeenth century, Flines was one of the best-known and most highly regarded communities for religious women in the Low Countries. (2) A periodically thriving economy, especially strong during Jeanne de Boubais' prelature from 1507 to 1533, allowed the nuns to commission a remarkably large body of images. (3)

The two paintings discussed here, both by Jean Bellegambe, date to a period in the convent's history in which relationships between the nuns and their male superiors were undergoing vigorous redefinition through reform. The works were not, it seems, intended for the nuns of the community, but rather for two clerics who had initiated and enforced the program at Flines. Despite a call for a shift in power away from the abbess to the clerics, the imagery of the paintings suggests compliance with the program's directives and, by extension, implies an integral position for Flines within Cistercian monasticism generally. Given prior resistance to reform on the part of numerous other women's houses, and the permanent dissolution of some convents that had not cooperated, conveying such a message must have seemed vital to the very survival of the community.

JEAN BELLEGAMBE AND FLINES

The two images considered here, one a diptych comprised of two painted panels and the other a triptych consisting of three, have been assigned on stylistic grounds to Jean Bellegambe of Douai (1470-75/1535). (4) The triptych is one of the earliest large-scale works produced by the artist: prior to taking on the commission, Bellegambe had produced only three other known panel paintings. These include an altarpiece of the Lamentation, a Rest on the Flight into Egypt, and a small-scale triptych portraying the Virgin and Child. The latter was commissioned by the Benedictine monastery of Anchin, not far from Flines, between 1500 and 1505. The nuns of Flines had connected with Bellegambe by 1509 at the latest, for a document from the convent dated to that year records the artist as having made an altarpiece for the chapel of Saint Michael at Flines. (5) While the circumstances surrounding the initial contact between Flines and Bellegambe are unknown, the relationship conceivably came about through mutual acquaintan ces at Anchin, as the abbey's distinctive four-tower silhouette is visible in the background of the Flines triptych. (6) The frequency with which Bellegambe's name is mentioned in the Flines' manuals of expenditures after 1509 suggests that he was the primary painter working for the convent in the early sixteenth century. As Bellegambe went on to complete a number of commissions for patrons other than the nuns of Flines, his early association with the community, and with Anchin, afforded him notoriety as a painter.

Despite an abundance of written evidence for Bellegambe's work at Flines, no direct textual evidence for the two paintings brought together for this study has been found. (7) Nonetheless, heraldic devices in both works leave no doubt that the impetus for the images originated with the convent, and specifically with the patronage of abbess Jeanne de Boubais. Although neither the diptych nor the triptych is signed or dated, abbatial croziers affixed to Jeanne de Boubais' coats of arms tie the works to the period of her prelature, which ranged from 1507 to 1533. It is not known whether Jeanne used personal or convent funds to finance the commissions, or paid for the paintings in some other way, such as through a familial liaison. (8)

The Flines triptych has come to be known as the Retable du Cellier or The Le Cellier Altarpiece (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art) after its discovery in the chapel of the Cistercian granary Le Cellier near the monastery of Clairvaux in the middle of the nineteenth century. (9) The painting measures an imposing 40 inches at its highest point and includes a total of twelve full-length figures. The format, size, and figural portrayal are consistent with paintings intended for display in large, formal spaces. Traditionally, paintings in triptych format were destined for display atop altars.

The major focus of the interior panels of the Retable du Cellier is the Virgin and Child, who are seated at center on a weighty throne surrounded by music-making putti (Fig. 1). (10) God the Father appears in the sky above the Virgin's head. In the middle ground of the central panel, to either side of the throne, angels interact playfully with each other. Eight additional figures - five men in Cistercian robes, a nun in a Benedictine habit, and a man and a woman of noble standing - kneel in prayer to either side. On the left wing Saint Bernard (1090-1153), who holds an abbatial crozier signifying his role as abbot of Clairvaux, presents two of the clerics to the Virgin and Child. Two other monks are presented by a bishop saint in the opposite wing. Additional references to Bernard are the arms of Clairvaux that appear in the upper reaches of the left wing, (11) and the fountain in the center panel, to the right of the Virgin's throne, which may be a reference to Fontaines-les-Dijon in Burgundy, Bernard's plac e of birth and family home. (12) Three aspects of the work associate it directly to Flines. The structures next to Bernard (Fig. 2) represent the convent, as is clear from comparisons with other known images that record its appearance; (13) the heraldic device of abbess Jeanne de Boubais appears at the top of the right-hand wing, above the head of the bishop saint, identifying her as the patron of the altarpiece; (14) and the facial features of the nun in the Benedictine habit are those of Jeanne de Boubais. (15) We will see that the theme of the inner panels of the altarpiece is the Family of Saint Bernard, with Jeanne in the guise of Bernard's sister, Humbeline.

The exterior panels of the Retable du Cellier also carry figural representations. Two figures, one on each wing, together portray the Miracle of the Lactation (Fig. 3), in which a stream of milk is propelled from the Virgin Mary's bared breast to the lips of Saint Bernard. This story, the most famous of the legendary tales that grew up around Bernard, had a strong currency within Cistercian visual culture in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, as attested by the numerous paintings and prints of the subject made during the period. (16)

The diptych (Pittsburgh, Frick Art Museum) is decidedly different in format from the Retable du Cellier. Its size - the work measures just under 16 inches high - as well as the limited number of half-length figures set close to the picture plane, suggest a more personal character than the triptych. Although the diptych's provenance can be traced back in written sources only to 1926 when it emerged from a private collection for sale in Paris, (17) the painting can be assigned to Jeanne de Boubais' patronage through the coat of arms that appears in the work. The device is positioned immediately above a portrait of Jeanne in adoration of the Host, at the center of the right-hand exterior panel (Fig. 4). Behind Jeanne and to the right, an interior window provides a view into an adjacent room, furnished with a bed, fireplace, clock, and two benches located next to an open window. (18) A nun (the abbess herself?) oversees one of her spiritual sisters, who is seated and reads from a book (Fig. 5). The presence of th e bed, fireplace, and benches together in one scene seems to suggest that the space was devoted to several uses or that the portrayal is a conflation of several rooms in the convent.

The scene portrayed on the diptych's inner panels (Fig. 6) takes place out of doors, or at least overlooking a landscape. An unidentified Cistercian monk is portrayed on the right-hand panel. The cleric is accompanied by Saint Bernard, who holds a crozier as a sign of his status as abbot of Clairvaux. Bernard presents the monk to the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child on the left wing. The arrangement of the painting with the Virgin and Child on one side, and the worshipper on the other, is a standard diptych type for the period that has come to be termed a devotional portrait diptych. Evidence provided in the painting suggests that the Virgin and Child panel may have been a prior workshop production: a large area on the far left, just above the Virgin's shoulder, has been covered with black paint, suggesting that a portion of the original imagery was deemed inappropriate to the work. (19) If this were the case, the landscape on the right side - the commissioned portrait panel - was made to appear continuous wi th that represented in the previously painted wing. While three of the diptych's panels are endowed with pictorial representations, the back of the left-hand panel is void of an image or inscription of any kind. (20)

CISTERCIAN NUNS AND REFORM

In assessing the relationship between clerical expectations for Cistercian nuns and the imagery of the Flines paintings, we begin with a reform movement initiated by Marie le Bervy of the convent of Robermont by 1406. (21) Marie's aim in reforming Cistercian convents was to reinstate two key elements of monasticism that she found lacking in certain houses, namely hermetic enclosure and personal poverty. The former called for the separation of the nuns from others, primarily from men and from the outside world but also from lay sisters. The latter obliged the surrender of an individual sister's property to the community at large. While certain nuns were content and even eager to comply with the directives of reform, others were slow to consent. Nuns at Robermont, Solieres, and Val-Benoit fought vigorously against the program, while three nuns of Val Notre-Dame took their protests to such extremes that they were excommunicated. (22) Although the reasons for resistance certainly varied, the major point of conten tion was the requirement of strict enclosure. Nuns at Marquette in Hainault refused reform for this very reason. (23) While some nuns hesitated to accept cloistering because they simply did not wish to sever their connections to the outside world, others may have been against it purely for practical reasons. It was not always easy to turn away those individuals who sought shelter or other accommodations from convents, especially when the needy held elevated social, political, or military positions. When Charles the Bold needed a place to spend the night after sacking the city of Liege in 1468, for instance, nuns at the convent of Vivegnis, which had not been reformed at the insistence of the nuns, obliged. (24) Religious women must have known that under certain circumstances, strict enclosure simply might be impossible to maintain.

It was perhaps because of the inability -- or refusal -- of some Cistercian nuns to enforce cloistering adequately that clerics found it necessary to intervene in the process of reform. This effort began with monks at individual houses, but by 1413 the clerics' concerns had begun to alarm the Cistercian Chapter general. On the advice of the abbots of Aulne, Villers, and Cambron, the Chapter threatened to disband convents that had resisted reform, and even went as far as to order the dissolution of selected houses. Monks replaced nuns at Moulins in 1414 and at Jardinet in 1430. These actions, which were met with harsh criticism on the part of some sisters, nonetheless often had the effect the Chapter desired: nuns at Argenton, Soleilmont, and Boneffe accepted reform rather than see their communities dissolved. (25) In a second wave of clerical intervention later in the fifteenth century, Jean Eustache, abbot of the Cistercian house of Le Jardinet, reformed a number of additional convents, including l'Olive, Be aupre, and Wauthier-Braine. After Eusrache's death, Le Jardinet and its affiliates continued to push the program at Argenton, Refuge Notre-Dame, Aywieres, and Soulchoir. The reform of Flines was part of this latter endeavor. Reform was announced at the convent late in 1506, during the prelature of abbess Marie Waye, by Jean Foucault, abbot of Clairvaux and immediate superior to Flines. On 15 December, Nicole Spaens, abbot of Nizelle, together with Guillaume de Bruxelles, confessor of Flines, promulgated the reform decree. (26) Foucault officially confirmed the program on 10 January 1507, and on 22 May it was approved by the Chapter general. (27)

Less than one year later, at the death of Marie Waye, Jeanne de Boubais filled the vacated abbatial seat, with, it seems, the goal of continuing the reform. Although it is always possible that Jeanne thought less of reform than she expressed in her writing, in the one extant letter from her hand she declares her resolute loyalty to it and to Guillaume de Bruxelles, who had been charged with its implementation within the community by Jean Foucault. (28) Numerous letters written to Jeanne suggest that she conveyed her dedication to her correspondents and solicited their advice in promoting the program within her community. Indeed, Jeanne seems to have sought advice from those who had the greatest understanding of the Order's expectations for reform. Her correspondents included Jean Foucault; Jean de Vepria, former prior of Clairvaux; Anne s'Grave, abbess of the reformed Cistercian convent of Wauthier-Braine and assigned exemplar for Jeanne during the reform of Flines; and Marguerite de Lummen, or de Marcq, abbe ss of the Benedictine house of Ghislenghein. (29) Jeanne's correspondents emphasized that reform was essential to the spiritual well-being of the abbess and her nuns, and for the glory of the convent, the Order, and even God. Given the prior replacement of nuns by monks in houses where women had not cooperated, expressing her desire to remain an integral part of the Order must have seemed crucial to Jeanne. Conversely, given the limited success or total failure in reforming some Cistercian convents in the recent past, her superiors must have afforded such attention to Flines to ensure success there.

Flines stands apart from other Cistercian convents of the period in that it is the only reformed community for which written articles specifying the expectations for the reform program survive. (30) The mandates of reform reveal a multifaceted and complex approach to the program that stretched far beyond Marie le Bervy's original desire to reinstate enclosure and poverty. The document opens by stressing the emphasis on the spirituality of convent life, and by calling for a restoration of regularity in the Divine Office. Subsequent articles prohibit simony, regulate the distribution of food, call for proper divisions of labor among the professed, specify acceptable wardrobes for the nuns and lay sisters, establish ways to provide for unexpected guests, offer guidance for dealing with the sick and the hungry, encourage individuals to point out faults, describe proper punishments, and regulate the assistance of outsiders with the heavy labor of the convent. Virtually all aspects of conventual life fell under the scrutiny of reform.

The predominant change that emerges from the articles, however, is a shift in the distribution of power at the highest levels within the community. Essentially, the authority of the abbess in relation to her male superiors was severely curtailed with the implementation of the mandates. The abridgement of the abbess' power, and indeed of the autonomy of the nuns generally, can been seen most strikingly in the directive of strict enclosure. (31) The reform mandates proclaimed cloistering as "la premier fondement et la chose plus necessaire saincte reformation" (the most fundamental and necessary component of holy reform) (214). The document charged Guillaume de Bruxelles with the implementation and maintenance of cloistering and, in fact, with the execution of the reform mandates generally. The seriousness of the mandate of enclosure is indicated by the punishment for violations. No nun was to leave the complex under penalty of excommunication. Anyone entering the convent must do so only with urgent need and af ter having secured the express permission of the confessor, the only person permitted to escort visitors to their desired destinations within the convent. To accommodate enclosure, the community was to initiate a number of modifications to its physical spaces. Windows, hinges, and grills were to be added "en l'eglise et en tous aultres lieux ou it sera besoing" (in the church and in all other places where it will be necessary) (214). An inventory of accomplishments toward reform written at the convent in 1509 indicates that these measures were carried out. (32) The list includes an entry describing a metal "closure," perhaps made with a screen placed between the choir of the nuns and the priests (fol. 15r); the segregation of the professed nuns from their numerous lay sisters by a subdivision of the nuns' choir (fol. 15v); the creation, for the nuns, of a "closure ou choir Saint John Evangelist," a partitioned area possibly located in one of the transepts or chapels (one of the radiating chapels at Flines was dedicated to Saint John) (fol. 15r); and the building of new walls around the nuns' quarters and the cloisters to contain the residents and prevent visitors from entering (fol. 19). (33) The reform, then, led to the creation of the physical boundaries that made hermetic cloistering a reality, or at least possible to achieve. The nuns were sequestered from the outside world, from their lay sisters, and from the male members of the Order, upon whom they depended for their spiritual well-being.

The barriers of enclosure not only separated the nuns from all other groups physically, but also established conceptual boundaries between the nuns and male personnel. The mandates from Flines suggest that Cistercian officials were well aware that the addition or modification of physical boundaries to separate the sexes within convents, and to sequester religious women from the outside world, worked to enforce the authority of the confessor within the community:

And also, so that this holy reform and the obedience to our Holy Father, to the Lord of Clairvaux, and to the Order should suffer no harm, we ordain and command that priests or servants should he retained and no one else taken in, except in council and with permission of the father confessor, who is more knowledgeable about their deeds and conversations than those who are cloistered, and whom we trust to bring in only those who are good and honest for service in the cloister (219). (34)

In the minds of Cistercian leaders, the physical barriers that kept nuns within the convent walls also kept them from acquiring a level of understanding that was essential for making sound judgments, especially in matters requiring knowledge of the outside world. Physical confinement to the convent diminished the nuns' abilities to reach informed conclusions, thereby bolstering the authority of their superior, who had regular and sustained access to the external realm.

The enforcement of enclosure was but one aspect of reform that affected authority at Flines at this time. The mandates are replete with additional references to the shift of power away from the abbess and to her confessor in many consequential aspects of convent life, such as the determination of punishments and the control of finances (the responsible management of the latter was considered to be essential for successful reform). Indeed, ten of the eighteen tenets of reform refer to Guillaume de Bruxelles' predominance within the community, and the final entry hands to him all responsibility for reform: We command that these ordinances and their dependencies be followed strictly by everyone they concern, under the penalties described above, that each one and all related things be accomplished, and pray that brother Guillaume, the father, should hold the responsibility for accomplishing the articles above, and to him is charged the entire ability and power of execution, and of placing and having placed into e ffect said reform, according to the ordinances presented above, by virtue of the commission of said reverend father in God, the abbot of Clairvaux (220). (35)

The mandates, then, in specific as well as in overarching ways, worked to redefine the confessor's relationship with the abbess and to confirm his dominion over the convent's spiritual and temporal concerns. Letters to Jeanne from Jean Foucault, Jean de Vepria, Anne s'Grave, and Marguerite de Lummen urged the abbess to relinquish control of the spiritual and temporal operations of the convent to Guillaume. (36) Indeed, a confessor's rapid and total integration into the reform of a convent, and his enthusiasm for his role in guiding the nuns toward it, were seen as key elements in its success. A letter written by one Dom Mathurin to Jeanne de Boubais at the beginning of her term of office states, "if Dom Gilbin [the confessor of the convent of Marquette] had the zeal and spirit of God as your pater [confessor Guillaume de Bruxelles] does, [the nuns of Marquette] also would now be successfully reformed, as you are." (37)

While enclosure, and the resulting loss of the abbess' and nuns' power, might be an affront to today's sensibilities, the women of Flines seem to have been amenable to cloistering and to the shift in authority it brought. Their responsiveness to their superiors is evident in the actions they took at the death of abbess Marie Waye in November of 1507. The death of the abbess, which came only ten months after the initiation of reform, must have been a serious blow to the community, and the process of replacement was undertaken with forethought. The nuns faced two options in filling the vacant seat: they could choose a replacement together, either outright or by secret ballot, or delegate a single person or group of people to elect a new abbess. (38) In the end, they relinquished their right to elect in favor of an appointment by an individual, namely Guillaume de Bruxelles. In choosing this option, the nuns relinquished their authority over the convent's most important position to their confessor. Their decisio n to hand such a significant charge to Guillaume suggests that they were, at the very least, willing to acknowledge his authority.

Guillaume de Bruxelles, in turn, must have given careful thought to his choice for abbess. As it would be Guillaume who would receive credit for reform if it were successful - and blame if it were not - making a sound decision about the appointment was critical. He must have chosen Jeanne because he thought that she desired compliance, had the capacity to motivate her community toward change, and could serve as an exemplar for the nuns in the community. Indeed, in a reform period, the abbess' traditional obligation to provide a model of behavior and attitude for her nuns took on even greater weight. Jeanne's correspondents continually pressed her to encourage high standards via her own example. Jean de Vepria, former prior of Clairvaux, wrote to Jeanne, "now it is time that you show your daughters what you have learned previously, as much with good example of religious conversation as by going to church for the Divine Office, and the dormitory and refectory with the others." (39) Abbess Anne s'Grave of Wauthi er-Braine stated that she and Jeanne, "must be the mirrors into which others look to know what they should do" (40) and "generally, [those in the abbess' care] adopt the habits and way of life of their prelate, and every time we show a bad example to them, we offend greatly." (41) Anne particularly stressed a mainstay of monasticism emphasized especially for nuns, namely humility. Of this, Anne wrote, "Those who [serve in their offices] with true humility, they deserve great honor from God, and the one who feels undeserving of all honor from this world of suffering, her humility will deserve to have the honor of heaven." (42) A second traditional expectation, obedience, is mentioned repeatedly within the documents associated with reform and in related letters. Jean de Vepria urged Jeanne to "guard well that there should be no ingrate behavior towards God in the honor he has given you, nor towards your devout convent, which also agreeably is submitted to you, in the hope that you procure [the nuns'] salvation with your own." (43) Perhaps obedience was emphasized so strongly during the reform of Flines because of past resistance to reform on the part of other women's houses. Whatever the case, Jeanne's correspondents emphasizes the potential consequences of Jeanne's behavior as abbess, implying that her actions, as examples of behavior for her spiritual daughters, were a means by which her superiors -- and ultimately God -- would judge her capabilities and weigh her success.

Despite the efforts of both Guillaume de Bruxelles and Jeanne de Boubais toward the reform of Flines, only two years after the initiation of the program the community was accused of violations. Several unnamed laymen who had been dismissed from Flines reported to the court of Margaret of Austria, Regent of the Netherlands, that Flines had transgressed from the reform mandates. Margaret of Austria informed the convent of the accusations in a letter of 16 November 1509:

It has come to our attention that, since the time that the convent of Flines received the order of reform, some of the nuns or others who were, and are still, governors and administrators of this church and the property belonging to it, have taken and carried away most of the gems, jewels, vessels, gold, and silver, and other valuable furnishings of said church, of great value and estimation, and have taken, sold, and dispersed of them, without applying or distributing the profits to the church. It is suggested also that said governors and administrators have received rents, revenues, and other goods belonging to the church and distributed them at will, using them neither to sustain the nuns nor to support the Divine Office in this church. By means of this government, [the convent] has fallen into total ruin and desolation. At the very least, the goods ordained for the foundation of the church were increasingly dissipated and converted into other uses than the support of the Divine Office and other operations according to the ordinance and intention of the founders, to the great scorn and diminution of the order of religion and to our great regret and displeasure. (44)

The accusations against Flines were serious enough that Margaret of Austria ordered an investigation, assigning the inquest to Jean Cuvillon of Lille. Cuvillon announced an on-site inspection of Flines. The convent's decisive reaction to this occurrence suggests that it saw the investigation as a momentous and potentially catastrophic circumstance. Acting swiftly, the community drew up a list of its accomplishments toward reform. (45) This text lays out the actions taken by the convent's administrators to bring the reform to fruition, listing actions they had considered to be, "very proper and necessary to the maintenance of the house and also for the observation, management, and preservation of the life of the holy reform" (fol. 15r). (46) Included in the document were steps taken toward reform of and compliance with a wide range of aspects of convent life: cloistering, economic self-sufficiency, revitalization and expansion of the convent's structures and properties, construction of areas for reading and le arning, repairs to the infirmary, repair and renovation of the kitchens and refectory, restocking the vestry, and commissioning of works of art for the glory of God. The account concludes with a claim of a total annual net profit of 84 livres, a substantial sum.

Fortunately for the community, their efforts in self-defense were successful. After a fifteen-day investigation that included a review of the document, an inspection of the convent and its property, and interviews with Guillaume de Bruxelles, Jeanne de Boubais, and the nuns of Flines, Cuvillon ruled that the charges against the convent were erroneous. (47) In this case, monastic theory and practice do not seem to have been inconsistent with one another. The community had managed to fulfill its Order's expectations for reform.

THE FLINES DIPTYCH AND EXPECTATIONS FOR REFORM

The devotional portrait diptych commissioned by Jeanne de Boubais (Figs. 4-6) is, on one hand, quite typical of works of this particular artistic format, one of the most prevalent in northern Europe in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. (48) Characterized by an image of the Virgin and Child or other holy figures on one interior panel and a portrait of a devotee, in this case a Cistercian cleric, on the other, the painting corresponds to a general standard formula for works of this sort. Yet the presence of an additional portrait on an exterior wing is highly unusual: the Flines diptych is one of two surviving devotional portrait diptychs in which this is the case. One reason for departing from the norm, it seems, was that Jeanne de Boubais wished to invite a comparison of the likenesses of herself and the cleric (although the two images could not be viewed simultaneously due to their physical arrangement within the diptych). The portraits, when considered together, articulate the relative relationsh ip of abbess and monk in association to the enclosure of the convent. In the panel containing Jeanne's portrait, the walls of the convent separate her and the nuns in the background from the outside world, disengaging them from all social entanglements as required by cloistering. The nuns' focus is their spiritual ardor and edification, be it achieved by worshipping the host as Jeanne does, or by reading texts as her spiritual sisters do. Jeanne's superior, by contrast, is portrayed outside of the convent walls, or at least out of doors, emphasizing his role as liaison between the women of Flines and lay society. As the confessor of Flines, Guillaume de Bruxelles also oversaw the piety of the community by hearing the nuns' confessions and advising its residents. The cleric represented here seems to take on the confessor's role as the primary spiritual liaison for the abbess and her nuns, serving as a facilitator in their relationship with the Virgin and Christ. Overall, the portraits suggest the cleric's pred ominance in the nuns' spiritual and temporal affairs, a traditional hierarchical organization within monasticism that was given an even greater emphasis than usual during reform. The diptych's localization of the nuns within the convent, and the placement of their superior outside of it, suggest that Jeanne understood and accepted this arrangement.

Not only does the diptych suggest Jeanne de Boubais' compliance with enclosure, it also implies her obedience to additional expectations for feminine monasticism. In this regard, it is the abbess' piety that is the major focus of the portrait. The image shows Jeanne kneeling at an altar, holding her abbatial crozier, and reading from an open book. A sumptuously embroidered pillow cushions the volume from the firm plane of the altar beneath it. (49) The most significant object on the altar is the gilt ciborium, the presence of which is accentuated by the crimson canopy that encircles it. The Latin phrase "Ecce panis angelo(rum)," (Behold the bread of angels) shown on a cloth covering the platform beneath the vessel, along with the translucent pall over the container, confirms that the eucharistic wafer is held inside. (50) The abbess' position before the ciborium is suggestive of her personal ardor for the host, a type of piety that carried particular significance for female worshippers in the late Middle Ages . Through a careful reading of the vitae of saints and medieval religious treatises, Caroline Walker Bynum has shown that by the thirteenth century, devotion to the Eucharist had become more strongly associated with women than with men. (51) Some female worshippers were compelled to seek communion as frequently as possible, others experienced visions associated with the host, and still others were involved in Eucharistic miracles. For many women, eating the Eucharist was a way to recognize Christ's physicality and to fuse with his corporeality. Some women who ingested the consecrated host even experienced mystical union with Christ. Although by the end of the sixteenth century Church officials openly discouraged women's mystical experiences and visions, (52) ardor for the host was certainly still central in women's devotions earlier in the century. The reform documents from Flines indicate that the barriers of enclosure were to permit the nuns and lay sisters to retain visual contact with the Eucharist (fols. 15r and 15v).

Jeanne de Boubais' devotion to the host carried specific associations with devout individuals affiliated with Flines. Flines abbess Imaine de Loos (1260-70), was a close friend of Juliana of Mont-Cornillon (1193-1258), who successfully led the fight to institute the feast of Corpus Christi. (53) From very early in her life one of Juliana's most pressing goals had been to heighten the significance of the Eucharistic celebration. Around 1208 this aim was brought to the fore by a vision, in which Juliana saw an image of the church beneath a full moon. The moon had a single dark speck on its surface. To Juliana, the black spot denoted a missing feast, one dedicated to the Eucharist. Hearing of the vision and moved by its intensity, the Dominicans in Liege, the bishop of Cambrai, and the chancellor of Paris all approved the feast. News of Juliana's mystical experience and the newly established feast spread throughout Europe, leading to its approval by Urban IV in 1264 and the resounding support of the Chapter gen eral of Citeaux in legislation of 1318. After this, ardor for the host increased rapidly and dramatically within the Cistercian order, as is made clear in the repeated references in the writings of the Cistercian monk Caesarius of Heisterbach. In Book 10 of his Dialogus miraculorum, for instance, the author discusses Eucharistic wonders no less than sixty-seven times. (54) The community of Flines felt a similar ardor for the host. Devotion to the Eucharist carried renewed importance there beginning in 1258 when the community took in Imaine as a refugee. Imaine's friendship with Juliana and her personal devotion to the host must have given Eucharistic worship a special meaning at Flines. A passage from the biography of Flines nun Florence de Werguignoeul, in which she is said to spend all her free time kneeling before the host, suggests this view. (55) The image of Jeanne de Boubais, then, evokes a tradition of Eucharistic devotion at Flines, associates the abbess with the spirituality of Imaine and Juliana, a nd asserts Jeanne's identification with these holy figures.

In contrast to Jeanne de Boubais' veneration of the host, the cleric on the inner panel is portrayed in prayer before the Virgin, a focus for spirituality that we now know was especially fitting for male supplicants. As Caroline Walker Bynum has shown, from the thirteenth through the fifteenth centuries, devotion to Mary was more prominent in the spirituality of male than female saints (female saints seem to have had a particular reverence for Christ and for Christ's humanity.) (56) The Virgin, in fact, figures more frequently in the visions of Cistercian male saints than Cistercian female saints, suggesting a gendered approach to Marian piety within the Order. (57) Such a preference may also be expressed in devotional portrait diptychs, which most often portray male worshippers in prayer to the Virgin. Indeed, of the 45 known devotional portrait diptychs, 36 represent solitary male supplicants, five show female worshippers, two portray a man and a woman together, and two represent families. (58) In 30 of the 36 works that depict solitary male worshipers, the focus of veneration is Mary. While laymen initially were the primary portrait subjects in devotional portrait diptychs, by the later part of the fifteenth century, clerics, primarily Cistercians and Carthusians, had begun to appear in them in substantial numbers. Perhaps the best known example originating with a Cistercian patron is the 1499 diptych commissioned by Chretien de Hondt, thirtieth abbot of Les Dunes (Fig. 7). (59) Given the reverence that Saint Bernard held for the Virgin, and the abundance and popularity of his writings on her virtues and glories, in Cistercian houses the commissioning of works portraying clerics in adoration of Mary suggest clerical devotion to Bernard, and, by extension, to a Bernardine-centered spirituality. (60) The many surviving images of the Miracle of the Lactation, such as that commissioned by Denis van Zeverdonck, abbot of Villers-en-Brabant from 1524 to 1545 (Fig. 8), in which portraits of Cistercian clerics are pres ented in the guise of Saint Bernard, bespeak an intense and pervading devotion to Mary and to Bernardine ideals. (61) Bernard, as a devotee to the Virgin and her Son, provides an exemplar for the cleric.

While the outer panel of the Flines diptych addresses Jeanne de Boubais' devotion to the host, it also suggests her attentiveness to the written word, as does her portrait in the Retable du Cellier. In both paintings, Jeanne de Boubais' gaze rests on an open manuscript. While it would be easy to dismiss the abbess' volumes as standard props, it cannot be an accident that books figure prominently in so many fifteenth- and sixteenth-century images of women, (62) both lay and religious, and in five of the seven surviving portraits of the abbesses of Flines. (63) Judging from surviving manuscripts that can be linked to women through coats of arms or provenance, it is clear that women were avid readers. This is true too of Cistercian nuns, who often ran schools in their communities and for whom spiritual reading -- lectio divina -- was a significant component of daily life. The importance of the written word for the nun's spiritual awareness and health -- and for their salvation -- could be reinforced by visual im ages, as suggested by a circa 1500 painting of the Crucifixion (Fig. 9), perhaps from Bruges. Here the Virgin looks away from the cross, points to the open book held by a Cistercian nun in the left foreground, and directs the nun to read. The Virgin's gesture to the text, made in front of the cross and during the Crucifixion, implies that reading devotional treatises was the key to achieving a divine understanding of Christ's sacrifice. The painting also suggests the nun's attention to the Virgin's directives. (64) The image, however, provides no clue to the identification of the text held by the nun, and neither are we given such information in the paintings commissioned by Jeanne de Boubais. The pages of the volume in the Retable du Cellier are not visible to us, and the text of the diptych's volume is illegible. (65) Nonetheless, the implication is that the devotee reads a type of text suited to her piety, such as a breviary or prayer book. (66) The numerous place markers within the text suggest the abbess ' familiarity with its contents.

Emphasis on lectio divina and on education generally were given strong if not increased emphasis at Flines during the early sixteenth century, presumably due to the reform's push toward spiritual renewal and learning. (67) A manual of the convent's expenditures from 1511-12 lists a number of manuscripts acquired by the community, and several new books, and selected volumes previously owned by the convent, received new bindings. (68) These records speak to the desire for new texts by which to nurture and sustain edification through reading, to an effort to preserve volumes the community already had obtained, and perhaps to the need to replace "corrupted" texts for compliance with reform. (69) Two passages in the document of 1509 refer to the construction of new chambers specifically dedicated to learning: "a very beautiful room [has been built] for six or seven novices to learn properly and decently with their teacher" (fol. 17r). (70) The nuns represented in the room adjacent to the abbess (Fig. 5) bespeak th is emphasis on the written word and on spiritual edification via texts. The seated figure studies an open volume, while the other stands nearby, perhaps offering guidance about the contents of the book or simply providing encouragement through her presence. One wonders if the standing figure represents Jeanne de Boubais at another moment in time, instructing one of her spiritual sisters. Whatever the case, Jeanne is not only a model reader, as suggested by her image in the foreground, but also a mentor within the community's push to educate.

Additional details in the diptych associate Jeanne de Boubais with traditional expectations for women's monasticism. The field of flowers rendered in bright reds, pinks, whites, yellows, and blues against a field of green, as represented both in the tapestry (or embroidery?) suspended on the wall behind the abbess' head and in the pillow resting on the altar, evokes the hortus conclusus or enclosed garden. While such representations appear in secular as well as religious works of this period, and in images showing both men and women, in a reformed convent setting the hortus conclusus is symbolic of a nuns vow of chastity and of her enclosure within her community. The theme of the hortus conclusus originated in the Song of Songs 4:12: "a garden locked is my sister, my bride; a garden locked, a fountain sealed" (hortus conclusus, soror mea sponsa; hortus conclusus, fons signatus). Saints Jerome and Ambrose, and then later, in a Cistercian context, Bernard of Clairvaux, interpreted this verse as a reference to M ary and her virginity. (71) By the fifteenth century the enclosed garden had become a highly relevant pictorial theme, especially in relation to the Virgin. Jan van Eyck's 1439 Virgin at a Fountain (Fig. 10), for instance, shows Mary and the Christ Child within an enclosed garden, next to a fountain, and before a cloth of honor suspended by two angels. The flowering plants that appear both behind and at the feet of the Virgin, combined with the low wall running behind her, invoke this subject. The hortus conclusus appeared frequently within conventual art - a number of works representing the theme were made by the nuns themselves - where it was a reminder of the monastic vow of chastity and the nuns' obligation for cloistering. The presence of the textile in the diptych might have suggested Jeanne de Boubais' attention to these components of her profession. Because the tapestry on the rear wall is suspended on, and essentially becomes part of, a physical barrier, it implies the kind of strict segregation that ensures enclosure and permits the preservation of chastity. This attribute also is suggested through the presence of two virgin saints on the abbess' crozier, Catherine of Alexandria , identified by her attribute, a wheel, and Barbara, identified by hers, the tower. The figures imply Jeanne's attention to their examples as models for her own virtuousness.

Other fabrics in the work, including those used for the nuns' habits and the bed coverings at the upper right, suggest the production of cloth, an additional expectation of the reform and a traditional aspect of women's monasticism. Such work helped the nuns satisfy a major directive of the Benedictine rule, namely opus manuum (work of the hands). In the later Middle Ages, cloth production and handwork in general carried moral meaning, with women who participated in such tasks taking part in a virtuous female activity." Prior scholarship on this issue cites numerous literary sources that promoted the moral aspect of handwork, including the Bible (Proverbs 31) and the Benedictine rule, which encouraged handwork as an appropriate alternative to idleness, "an enemy of the soul." (72) An eyewitness account concerning daily life at Flines attests that at least later in the century, the nuns often occupied themselves with sewing. Francois de Bar, prior of. the nearby Benedictine abbey of Anchin and a visitor to Fli nes around 1599, wrote that, "all [the nuns of Flines] work and make what is necessary for life and to clothe the sisters. I have seen them spin, weave panels of cloth, and dye vestments, as well as make various things the nuns need." (73) The nuns' production of their own garments enabled them to comply with their superiors' expectations for their attire as stipulated in the reform documents. One tenet calls for simplicity in the veils, habits, and collars of the nuns, for standard lengths of garments, and for the elimination of all excesses in accessories, while another insists that lay sisters wear only the color gray (217). Creating fabrics and embroidered work also might have augmented the convents economy. By making their own garments, the nuns were able to reduce the community's expenditures and strengthen the financial base of the community, a characteristic vital to reform.

We also should consider the bed portrayed in the adjoining space at the upper right of the panel, which may suggest, along with the reading nuns, a conflation of spaces. In the Netherlands during this period, however, draped beds such as this were often displayed by the nobility in public areas of their homes, to suggest solid financial standing and elevated social status. (74) In some cases, in fact, draped beds were never intended to be slept in at all, but were installed in accessible areas for the sole purpose of conveying one's social and financial rank. Jeanne de Boubais, a member of the noble class, certainly understood this. Thus, the bed in the Flines diptych would be better understood as an indicator of the economic stability of her community rather than as a sign of the function of the space in which it is positioned.

Finally, the clock hanging on the wall within the room represented behind Jeanne de Boubais signifies her insistence upon a renewal of regularity at Flines. (75) Within monasticism generally, timepieces were seen as the instruments that enabled monastic constancy; a twelfth-century Cistercian rule describes the clock as the regulator of monastic life. (76) The Benedictine rule, revitalized at Flines through the reform, is replete with references to the times at which the Offices and daily tasks should be performed. The timepiece kept and governed the hours of the day, signaling the moments at which mass and the Offices were to be attended and labors to be done. The clock in the painting suggests that the nuns attended the Divine Office "meurement et a traict" (promptly and on time) as stipulated in the reform mandates (214), despite the accusation in 1509 that they did not. Suspended high above the canopy of the bed, allowing the nuns present within in the room to monitor it with ease, the timepiece implies t hat the women would have a constant awareness of the hour and, by extension, would honor their commitment to the Divine Office.

THE THEME OF THE RETABLE DU CELLIER

The Retable du Cellier has remained, an enigmatic work, in part because the subject portrayed on the interior panels of the altarpiece (Fig. 1) has been difficult to pinpoint. (77) The identity of the figures, the outdated costumes of the nobility, Jeanne de Boubais' Benedictine habit, and the absence of a specific attribute that identifies the bishop saint, have generated controversy. Most efforts to resolve the debate about these puzzling features have been grounded in comparisons of the painting's iconography to that of other images originating from Cistercian contexts in the sixteenth century. This approach has great potential, but has not been entirely successful because the subjects of the images used for comparison have themselves been problematic. Robert Genaille, for instance, proposed that the subject of the altarpiece is the adoration of the Virgin and Child by the family of Saint Bernard. (78) Although his conclusion was correct, the evidence was not entirely convincing. Genaille compared the Flin es altarpiece with an illumination in a fifteenth-century French manuscript showing Bernard's family looking on as Bernard takes his vows as a Cistercian monk. Although Bernard's parents, Tescelin le Saur and Aleth de Montbard, are identified by banderoles, the brothers are not, which draws Genaille's conclusion into question.

Fortunately, as Robert Will has shown, a painting by Nikolaus Kremer from the reformed Cistercian convent of Lichtenthal in southwest Germany dated 1534 (Fig. 11) resolves the problem. (79) The Lichtenthal work corresponds closely enough to the imagery of the Flines altarpiece - not so much in composition but in the number and characteristics of the figures discussed above - that the two works must portray the same theme, and in the Lichtenthal painting the enigmatic figures are identified in banderoles. (80) Saint Bernard's five brothers, Gui, Gerard, Andrew, Bartholomew, and Nivard, converted to the Cistercian order via Bernard's influence, are shown at the lower left, while their parents appear at the lower right. Saint Malachy O'Morgair (circa 1094-1148), abbot of Bangor, bishop of Connor, and archbishop of Armagh, appears atop the right-hand column. The only figure not identified by a banderole is the female figure at the lower right. This must be Bernard's sister, the Blessed Humbeline (d. 1135), priore ss and later abbess of the convent of Jully near Troyes, wearing the black habit of the Benedictine order to which she belonged. (81) Finally, the male figure shown at the lower left, apart from the rest of the figures, is the confessor to the nuns of Lichtenthal, Sebastien Metzger, the only figure that does nor correspond to a figure in the Flines altarpiece. The theme of the Lichtenthal painting, then, is the family of Saint Bernard in adoration of the Virgin and Child, with Malachy and the donor also looking on. By extension, the same theme must be portrayed in the Retable du Cellier.

The banderoles in the Lichtenthal painting also permit the identification of the subject of Bernard's family in a woodcut frontispiece from the Melliflui deuotiq[ue] doctoris sancti Bernardi [...] Opus preclaru[m] (The illustrious work of the mellifluous and devout doctor Saint Bernard) (Fig. 12), published in 1508 and in nine later editions through 1546. (82) The volume contains, among other writings, selections of Bernard's sermons and homilies, his commentary on the Song of Songs, and his biography of Saint Malachy. The iconography and composition of its frontispiece are nearly identical to that of the Lichtenthal painting. The only major differences between the two works are the presence of the confessor and the absence of "rays" emanating from God the Father in the latter work. It seems likely, as suggested in separate studies by Kaspar Elm and Robert Will, that the frontispiece, widely available in a popular printed text, served as a model for the Lichtenthal work or that perhaps both images ulti mately came from the same source. (83) The woodcut also might have provided a loose point of inspiration for the Retable du Cellier, not so much in composition and certainly not in format, but rather in theme. (84) The 1508 edition of the Opus preclaru[m] appeared, in fact, just prior to the date at which Jeanne de Boubais commissioned the altarpiece, if one accepts the separate stylistic evaluations by Genaille and Sterling, who date the painting circa 1509-10. (85) No matter what the ultimate source for the Flines altarpiece, the subject of the family of Saint Bernard certainly held a currency in Cistercian art at the time. The use of the theme outside Flines suggests that Jeanne de Boubais intended to extend the Retable du Cellier beyond the painting's localized point of origin into the politics of the Cistercian Order at large.

PATRON AND AUDIENCE

After years in obscurity, the Retable du Cellier was rediscovered in the middle of the nineteenth century in the chapel of a Cistercian granary called Le Cellier, located near Clairvaux. Although it may never be known when the painting arrived there, its presence substantiates a link between the triptych and Clairvaux. In asking how the altarpiece made its way to Le Cellier, one could speculate that Jeanne de Boubais commissioned it for Clairvaux (86) and perhaps even for Jean Foucault, who had initiated reform at Flines. (87) The connections between the nuns of Flines and Foucault are pronounced: his name, with references to his authority at the convent and seniority to Guillaume de Bruxelles, appears repeatedly in the reform mandates. For at least the first few months after Jeanne de Boubais became abbess in 1507, Foucault corresponded with her regularly, and the letters that survive are nearly exclusively about the reform. Foucault's writings underscore the importance he assigned to the program, declaring that he had confirmed Jeanne's appointment to the abbatial office, "under the condition that [she] always maintain and perfect the holy reform." (88) In a separate letter to the nuns of Flines, Foucault urged them to be respectful of their abbess and confessor, and to be "good and obedient daughters, who live without variation, according to the reform." (89) The success of the reform of Flines must have seemed vital to Foucault, especially in light of the Order's earlier difficulties in gaining the cooperation of convents.

Foucault must have been at least somewhat impressed when the Retable du Cellier, a large-scale altarpiece made by a talented artist and commissioned at no small expense to its patron, arrived at Clairvaux. The triptych's Bernardine-centered subject matter, including the Miracle of the Lactation represented on the exterior panels and the family of Saint Bernard on the interior, surely resonated in a particularly profound way for Foucault, who was a successor to Saint Bernard in the abbatial office at Clairvaux. The focus on the Virgin Mary, venerated by Bernard's family on the altarpiece's interior panels, must also have appealed to him, as Marian piety was such a central element in the spirituality of Cistercian men. Given the concurrent practice of representing Cistercian clerics in the guise of Saint Bernard, perhaps the features of Saint Bernard in the Lactation scene, which seem highly individualized, are those of Foucault. (90)

The connections between the Retable du Cellier and reform are strengthened when one asks why Jeanne de Boubais wished to be represented as Bernard's sister, Humbeline. (91) Humbeline, although chastised by Bernard early in her life for her excesses in dress and behavior, later recanted this lifestyle and became a champion of Bernard's attempts to promote reform, especially his push to renew the asceticism of the Benedictine rule among the Cistercians. The portrait of Jeanne as Humbeline implies that the former intended to emulate the latter, both in attitude and behavior. Jeanne enforced the rule at Flines -- as implied through the black habit of the Benedictines -- and was dedicated to monastic reform, as Humbeline was. Furthermore, based on a comparison of the features of the monk shown in the Retable du Cellier's center panel with a known portrait of Guillaume de Bruxelles, it is clear that the figure represents the confessor of Flines. (92) The same facial features, distinguished by a sharp nose and chin, are found in the donor portrait of a triptych of the Annunciation commissioned by Guillaume between circa 1516-1518 (Fig. 13). Guillaume, like Jeanne, is shown as integral to the family of Flines, and by extension to the family of Clairvaux and the Order of Citeaux. The portrait suggests Guillaume's central role in executing the mandates of reform, as he had been charged to do by the abbot of Clairvaux.

The presence of Saints Bernard of Clairvaux and Malachy O'Morgair in the Retable du Cellier makes the associations between the altarpiece and reform even more pronounced. Both saints were revered by the Cistercians for their work as reformers. The twelfth-century reform of the Order, which promoted strict observance of the Benedictine rule, is well known. Bernard's participation in this struggle was a primary factor in Malachy's canonization by Pope Clement III in 1199. While Bernard's efforts toward reform were widespread, Malachy's were localized to Bangor and the church of Armagh. Bernard's biography of Malachy discusses the latter's efforts at restoring discipline, devoting an entire chapter to the reform of Bangor and "certain miracles" performed by Malachy. (93) Indeed, due in part to Bernard's praise of this aspect of Malacy's life, the Cistercian Order viewed reform as a significant component in his work. Malachy died at Clairvaux, in Saint Bernard's arms, in 1148, and was subsequently canonized in 11 90. While a long and extensive tradition of Bernardine imagery weakens any argument associating Bernard's figure in the Retable du Cellier directly to reform, representations of Malachy are much more rare. He appears in visual representation with any frequently only in the fifteenth century, when reform began to take hold within Cistercian convents. His figure is present in an altarpiece from Clairvaux, in the woodcut frontispiece to the Opus preclaru[m] and in the painting from Lichtenthal, also a reformed house. (94) The Opus preclaru[m] also includes Bernard's biography of Malachy. Perhaps the new emphasis on the Irish abbot-reformer at this time, and on the familial associations of the subject of the Retable du Cellier, point to the genesis of a reform-related iconography within the Order, a hypothesis that cannot be explored here but one that deserves greater attention in the future.

The date of circa 1509-10 proposed by Genaille and Sterling for the Retable du Cellier suggests that Jeanne de Boubais might have commissioned the painting in response to a weighty event of the period, namely the accusations of violations of the reform levied against the convent in 1509. Charged with driving the convent into "total ruin," Jeanne would have had ample reason to wish to counteract such charges in any way she could. Drawing up a list of the community's accomplishments toward reform was one way she and Guillaume de Bruxelles attempted to refute the accusations; commissioning the Retable du Cellier, it seems, was another. In addition to the painting's reform-based iconography, the very act of commissioning and paying for an altarpiece of such size and quality suggests the strength of the community's economy and the means the convent had to divert funds to such an endeavor. Indeed, the depiction of Flines in the left wing of the altarpiece, which portrays an impressiveb grouping of meticulously-main tained structures and a populated courtyard alive with activity (Fig. 2), suggests just the kind of economic stability that reform sought to achieve.

Thus, the iconography of the Retable du Cellier proposes a parallel between the "ideal" family of Saint Bernard and the reformed family of Flines. It presents a tightly-knit, single-minded monastic family akin to Bernard's biological family, with Jeanne de Boubais and Guillaume de Bruxelles as its representatives. By presenting herself and Guillaume as members of Bernard's family, the abbess suggests the integral position of Flines within the filiation of Clairvaux and the Order of Citeaux. The altarpiece thus promotes the identity of Flines as a Cistercian house, a community whose members are united by a common devotion to the traditions of their Order. Destined, as Jeanne must have hoped, for display on a major altar at Clairvaux, the painting also suggests the centrality of the feminine branch of the Order within the Cistercian family as a whole, following a long history of opposition to reform on the part of many convents.

By virtue of its format, the Flines diptych is suited to different circumstances than the Retable du Cellier. Devotional portrait diptychs have long been considered more intimate in format than triptychs, which were usually destined for large altars located in public spaces. The intimacy of the diptych, along with its relatively limited size, suggests that Jeanne de Boubais commissioned the work for a smaller space, such as the one she herself occupies on the diptych's exterior. It would seem, then, that Jeanne must have ordered the painting either for herself or for someone with whom she was closely acquainted. (95) Indeed, although it is often assumed that the worshippers portrayed on the interior panels of devotional portrait diptychs were the patrons, owners, and primary audiences of the works, by the sixteenth century such images were commissioned, kept, and displayed by and for others. This was the case with at least two diptychs commissioned by Margaret of Austria portraying her advisor and friend, car dinal Erard de la Marck, one of which she hung in her bedroom at her palace in Mechelen. (96) It would be consistent with contemporaneous practice, then, for Jeanne to have commissioned a diptych for herself, even if it represented someone else, namely the Cistercian monk on the inner right panel. It is also possible, however, that the cleric was the intended recipient of the work. If the Flines diptych belonged to him, then patron Jeanne de Boubais must have presented it to him as a gift. In doing so, her intention likely was to convey her personal loyalty to her superior and to the ideals of Cistercian feminine monasticism. That Saint Bernard holds a crozier with representations of the same female saints as those on the crozier of Jeanne de Boubais, namely Catherine and Barbara, implies Bernard's role as the spiritual sponsor of the convent. (97) His approval has been earned by the abbess, under whose administration the reform had been carried out and sustained.

THE AUDIENCE OF THE FLINES DIPTYCH

But who is the Cistercian cleric portrayed in the diptych's interior? In the absence of direct documentary or visual evidence that might link a name to him, we must resort to other means to answer this question. Of all the Cistercian monks associated with the convent during Jeanne de Boubais' prelature, the name of Guillaume de Bruxelles appears with the greatest frequency in surviving documents. Jeanne's reliance on her confessor as an advisor for reform was pronounced, and an image with reform-related content, such as the diptych, would be highly suited for his portrait, as he was charged with the implementation of the program. The features of the cleric as portrayed in the painting are consistent with the Retable du Cellier and the Annunciation altarpiece, albeit the figure in the Flines diptych seems to be slightly heavier, with a fuller face. The heraldic evidence -- or lack thereof -- also points to Guillaume. The shield held by the putto in the upper left corner of the left interior wing, which normall y would have carried the coat of arms of the sitter, remains blank. Following conventional practices of the period, if heraldry had been appropriate to the sitter it certainly would have been included in the painting. This suggests that the figure portrayed within the work was not of noble status, as Guillaume was not. (98) His Annunciation altarpiece is also devoid of a heraldic device. Perhaps, then, it is Guillaume who appears in the diptych. (99)

If one accepts the identification of the cleric as Guillaume de Bruxelles, then there are at least three possible moments that fall within the parameters of Jeanne de Boubais' term of office and Guillaume's service as confessor of Flines, that is from 1507 to 1513, when the abbess might have been especially inspired to commission the diptych. First, she could have negotiated the commission when taking the abbatial seat in 1507, as a visual statement of her intentions to uphold the expectations of her office, including reform. The diptych's imagery is also suited to the inquisition of 1509, when Flines was under close scrutiny and Jeanne de Boubais would have wanted to express the community's commitment to the ideals of the Order. If the painting were ordered then, the lavish gilt ciborium may be an assertion that the community's administrators had not sold the church's vessels, as the former lay employees claimed in their accusations of that year. (100) It is also conceivable that Jeanne de Boubais commission ed the diptych to honor Guillaume as he departed Flines to take the abbatial seat at the Benedictine abbey of Saint Amand in 1513. If so, the painting may have been intended as a gift of thanks.

In the end, the identity of the monk in the Flines diptych is far less important than what the portraits of the abbess and cleric suggest about Cistercian women and their relationships to their superiors. Indeed, in a period of deep social and religious change that had the potential to lead to serious conflict, visual images played a key role in Jeanne de Boubais' efforts to communicate with her superiors. Both the diptych and the triptych present Jeanne as firmly committed and wholly responsive to the objectives of reform; the diptych in particular seems to support for the shift in power away from the abbatial seat to the clerical positions via enclosure. In the end, the abbess' artistic patronage allowed her to situate herself and her community in relation to the convent's superiors, to convey her wish to yield to the mandates of reform, and to suggest a desire to integrate Flines squarely within the Cistercian order at large.

(*.) I wish to thank those whose thoughtful comments permitted me to improve this essay: Ann Jensen Adams, Larry Ayres, James France, Mark Meadow, Ann M. Roberts, Christine Sperling, Vera Viditz-Ward, Robert Williams, and the anonymous Renaissance Quarterly readers. I am also grateful to Maryan W. Ainsworth, Michael B. Allen, Dagmar Eichberger, Lehua C. Fisher, and Jeffrey Chipps Smith for their support and assistance, and the Samuel H. Kress Foundation and the P.E.O. Sisterhood for enabling research abroad.

(1.) While such contributions are too numerous to list here, those especially helpful for the present study are Gilchrist, Hamburger, McNamara, Montulet-Henneau, Vandenbroeck, Wood, and Ziegler. For further bibliography, see Roberts.

(2.) Flines was founded by Margaret of Constantinople in 1234 as a community for Cistercian women and as a place of burial for herself and her family. The longstanding prevalence of the convent is suggested by the community's exceedingly large population: 100 professed nuns in 1270, 57 in 1542 (impressive by sixteenth-century standards) and up to 150 in the seventeenth century. The only comprehensive modern studies of Flines are those by Hautcoeur, which are highly romanticized and must be used with caution. For the early history of the convent, see Jordan, and Morganstern, esp. Chapter (3).

(3.) For the artistic patronage of Flines in the sixteenth century, see Pearson, 1995, where nine panel paintings, two illuminated manuscripts, a leaf from a gradual, and an antependium are tied to the convent through abbesses' coats of arms (catalog on 402-37). For a discussion of the financial aspects of the nuns' patronage, see Pearson, forthcoming. For the convent's economy in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, see Hanke.

(4.) For Bellegambe's work at Flines and elsewhere in the environs of Douai, see Dehaisnes, Baligand, and Genaille, 1976.

(5.) For the procurement of art by enclosed nuns, see Pearson, forthcoming, and Hamburger, 1992 and 1998, 35-109. The Bellegambe altarpiece of 1509 is listed in Douai, Archives Municipales (hereafter Arch. Mun.), Archive de la Famille de Lalaing, Layette LIX, no. 322.

(6.) Mely, 105, has compared the structure as portrayed by Bellegambe with that on the crozier of Abbot Charles Goguin in the 1509-13 Polyptyque d'Anchin (Douai, Musee de la Chartreuse). To this I add an image of Anchin in the Albums de Croy, illustrated by Misonne, 245.

(7.) The suggestion by Genaille, 1952, that the triptych is the Bellegambe painting described in a document of 1509 (Douai, Arch. Mun.), is nor convincing, as the description lacks sufficient detail to link it with certainty to any work.

(8.) For a discussion of the financing of artistic commissions at Flines generally, see Pearson, forthcoming.

(9.) M. d' Arbois de Jubainville rediscovered the triptych prior to 1861, as discussed in the Repertoire archeologique de l'Aube cited by Burroughs and Wehle, 6. For a synopsis of the scholarship on the altarpiece, see the entry by Mary Spinson de Jesus in Ainsworth and Christiansen, 332-34. For the most recent study of medieval Cistercian art generally, see France, 1998.

(10.) The standard work on the iconography of Saint Bernard is Humpfner.

(11.) Mely, 100.

(12.) My thanks to Conrad Rudolph for pointing out this possible association.

(13.) See, for instance, the illustration of the convent by A. Sanderus, Flandria illustrata, seventeenth century, Brussels, Bibliotheque Royale Albert Ier, reproduced by Hautcoeur, 1909, frontispiece. Also, Mely, 105, has shown that the skyline of Douai, with its renowned bell tower, appears in the background of the left wing.

(14.) Identified previously by Burroughs and Wehle, 6, as the heraldry of the Nove or Noue family, Genaille, 1952, 100, has shown the device to be that of Jeanne de Boubais. A restoration has altered the appearance of the heraldry, but not to the point of illegibility. My thanks to Maryan W. Ainsworth for discussing this matter with me.

(15.) A comparison of the features of Jeanne in the Flines diptych with those of the nun in the Retable du Cellier strongly suggests a portrait likeness.

(16.) For the Miracle of the Lactation, see Schmitt, Dewez and van Iterson, Berlioz, Dupeux, Stiennon, and Marti and Mondini.

(17.) As recorded in the file for the painting in the Frick Art Museum.

(18.) On views through windows in paintings from fifteenth- through seventeenth-century northern Europe, see Stoichita, 34-43.

(19.) My thanks to Ron Spronk for discussing this issue with me.

(20.) Conservation report by William Suhr, April 2, 1969, in the files of the Frick Art Museum.

(21.) For the reform of Cistercian convents, see Hautcoeur, 1909, 143-53; Montulet-Henneau, 1990b, 192-208; Lekai, 109-25; and Lefevre. The latter contains factual inaccuracies and must be used with caution.

(22.) Montulet-Henneau, 1990b, 196.

(23.) Hautcoeur, 1872, 210-11.

(24.) Montulet-Henneau, 1990b, 197.

(25.) Ibid., 201.

(26.) Hautcoeur, 1909, 146.

(27.) Ibid., 151.

(28.) Douai, Arch. Mun., 322/3, letter of 4 March 1511 to Charles de Lalaing.

(29.) Archives departementales du Nord (hereafter A.D.N), published by Hautcoeur, 1873, 433-47.

(30.) Douai, Arch. Mun., armoire 2, laisse 1, published by Hautcoeur, 1872, 213-20.

(31.) For the ideology of enclosure, see Makowski; Hamburger, 1998, 35-109; and, in relation to convent architecture, Weddle (copy not available).

(32.) Douai, Arch. Mun., Arch. de la Famille de Lalaing, Layette LIX, no. 322/1. Subsequent references to this unpublished document are indicated in the text by folio number.

(33.) For a discussion of the relationship of enclosure to the ground plan of the church, and for additional examples of the ways in which the physical spaces of the convent were modified in order to enforce cloistering, see Pearson, 1995, 179-200.

(34.) "Et aussi, afin que cette saincte reformation et 1'obeissance de nostre Saint Pere, de monsieur de Clerevaulx et de 1'ordre, ne porte a nulluy prejudice, ordonnons et commandons que 1'on ne donne point congie aux chappelains, serviteurs ou servireresses, et que on n'en prenne point des autres, sinon par le conseil et consentement exprez du pere confesseur, qui peut congnoistre leur meurs et conversations mieux que celles qui ne bougent du cloistre, et duquel avons ferme confiance qu'il ne vouldroit conseiller a recevoir personne au service de ceans qu'il ne cogneust bons et honestes serviteurs et serviteresses."

(35.) "Lesquelles ordonnances et leurs dependences commandons estroictement, soubz les peines dessusescryptes, estre accomplies de une chascune ainsy que leur touchera, en priant ledite frere Guillaume, le pater, de tenir la main a l'accomplissement des articles dessusdites, et lui donnant charge, plaine puissance et pouvoir de executer, et de mettre, et de faire mettre en effect ladicte reformation, selon les ordonnances dessusdites, par la vertu de commission dudit reverend pere en Dieu monsieur de Clervaux."

(36.) Correspondence between these parties has been published by Hautcoeur, 1872, 236-61.

(37.) "Et si dam Gilbin eust le zel et esperit de Dieu comme vostre pater, elles feussent de present aussi bien reformees que vous estes." Douai, Arch. Mun., 25 December 1507, cited by Hautcoeur, 1909, 161, n. 2.

(38.) Hautcoeur 1872, 227-33, has published the proces verbal of the election.

(39.) "Or maintenant il est temps que vous monstres a voz filles ce que par avant aves aprins, tant par bonne exemple de religieuse conversation, ainsi comme vous le faictes en frequentant l'eglise au service divin, et le dortoir et refectoir avec les aultres." Douai, Arch. Mun., armoire 2, laisse 1, 27 December 1507, cited in Hautcoeur, 1872, 240.

(40.) "Nous debvons estre le miroer ou les aultres se doibvent mirer pour scavoir che qu'ilz doibvent faire." Douai, Arch. Mun., armoire 2, laisse 1, 5 July 1508, cited in ibid., 252.

(41.) "Les subjectes ensieute les meurs er le vie de leur prelact, et ottant de fois que nous monstrons mauvais exemple a nos subjectes, ottant de fois offensons grandement." Douai, Arch. Mun., armoire 2, laisse 1, 21 July 1508, cited in ibid., 255.

(42.) "Celles qui le font en vraye humilite teles sont dignes de grande honneur envers Dieu, et celui qui se reputte indigne de touttes honneurs de cest miserable monde, sa humilite le fera digne d'avoir les honneurs du ciel." Douai, Arch. Mun., armoire 2, laisse 1, 27 December 1507, cited in ibid., 255.

(43.) "Gardes bien que ne soyes ingrate envers Dieu de l'honneur qu'il vous a fait, ne aussi envers vostre devot convent, qui ainsi concordamment s'est a vous submis, en esperance que vous procurrez leur salut avec le vostre." Douai, Arch. Mun., armoire 2, laisse 1, cited in Hautcoeur, 1872, 240. For a discussion of the importance of the vow of obedience in Cistercian convents, see Montulet-Henneau, 1990b, 523-26. For the daily life of nuns, see Hasenohr.

(44.) "Il est venu a nostre congnoissance que, depuis que l'abbaye de Flines a este reduicte a l'ordre de reformation, aulcuns religieux ou aultres qui ont eu et ont encores le gouvernement et administration d'icelle eglise et des biens y appartenans, ont prins et emporte la pluspart des baghes, jeuwaux, vaisselle, or et argent comptent, et aultres biens meubles de ladite eglise en grant valleur et estimation, et les ont emportez, vendus et discipez, sans que riens en ayt este aplicque ne distribue au prouffit d'icelle eglise. S'avancent aussy lesdis gouverneurs et administrateurs de recepvoir les rentes, revenues et aultres drois appartenans a icelle eglise et les distribuer a leur volunte, sans les employer a la sustentation des religieuses, ne a l'entretenement du service divin d'icelle eglise; laquelle, au moyen dudit gouvernement, du dit est taillee de a traictie de temps tumber en totalle ruyne et desolation. Du moins que les biens ordonnez pour la foundation d'icelle seront de plus en plus discipez et convertis en aultre usaige que en l'augmentation du service divin et aultres opdrations salutaires selon l'ordonnance et intention des fondateurs d'icelle, au grant meprisement et diminution de l'ordre de religion et nostre grant regret et desplaisir." A.D.N. cited by Hautcoeur, 1873, 434.

(45.) Douai, Arch. Mun., Arch. de la Famille de Lalaing, Layette LIX, no. 322/1.

(46.) "Tres propree et necessaires a lentretenement de la maison et en oultre pour observer, tenir, et garder la vie de sainct reformation."

(47) The convent's record of Jean Cuvillon's visit and its result can be found in A.D.N. 31 H 11.

(48.) For the most recent studies of devotional portrait diptychs, see Gelfand, Baumler, Friedman, Wilson, Pearson, 2000, and Pearson, Fall 2001/Winter 2002.

(49.) For a discussion of inventory descriptions for such pillows at the convent of Long-champ, see Mlynarczyk, 100-103.

(50.) The ciborium rests on a metal altare portatile or portable altar. My thanks to Conrad Rudolph for this information.

(51.) Bynum, esp. 73-112. Sec also Stiennon, Hontoir.

(52.) Pearson, 1995, 96-139.

(53.) On Juliana of Mont-Cornillon, see Henschenius and Papebroch, and Newman. Although never officially a Cistercian, Juliana had taken refuge in four different Cistercian convents during her lifetime, requested burial at the Cistercian house of Brabancon, and held the writings of Saint Bernard in great esteem. Abbess Imaine of Flines was at Juliana's side at her death. For their relationship see Newman, bk. II, chap. 6-8. Juliana did not accompany Imaine to Flines; she had died at Fosses on 5 April 1258, prior to the latter's departure for Flines. The foundation and liturgy of the feast of the Corpus Christi has been discussed by Rubin, 164-212.

(54.) McDonnell, 310-11.

(55.) Martene and Durand, 246.

(56.) Bynum, 26 and 269, points out that the dominance of Mary in men's visions in no way precludes the importance of the Virgin in women's devotion. Women's ardor for the Virgin, however, seems to have been a prelude to a devotion to her Son.

(57.) Roisin, 108 and 111-20, and Weinstein and Bell, 123-37.

(58.) For elaboration, see Pearson, 2000. Additional devotional portrait diptychs have been located since that article was written, which strengthens the association of the format with men. Four of the diptychs portraying a female worshipper represent Margaret of Austria. For these, see Gelfand, 72-5, Silver, Eichberger, and Pearson, Fall 2001/Winter 2002.

(59.) Between 1519 and 1557, the thirty-second abbot of Les Dunes, Robert Leclercq, had his portrait added to the versa of the left wing. It is likely that the same artist is responsible for the overpainting to the verso of the right wing which portrays the Salvator Mundi in partial grisaille; Leclercq's coat of arms are additions. When the work passed into the collection of the Chevalier Florent van Ertborn in 1827, it came from the last abbot of the Dunes. See Flanders in the Fifteenth Century, 171-74.

(60.) I am grateful to Conrad Rudolph for suggesting a possible relationship between the patron and a Bernardine-type spirituality.

(61) Examples of paintings of this theme originating from Cistercian contexts are in the collection of the Bibi. de l'Universite, de Liege; the Musee des Beaux-Arts, Tournai; the Cathedrale Saint-Sauveur de Bruges, and the Musee des Beaux-Arts, Ghent. All of these are single panels and are illustrated in Dewez and van Iterson, figs. 3-6. Two examples of the theme in the diptych format are in the Bob Jones University Collection, Greenville, S.C., and the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven.

(62.) As suggested by Sheingorn. On women and books, see also S. G. Bell, Signori, and Taylor and Smith.

(63.) For these images, see Pearson, 1995, 402-37.

(64.) For the Virgin Mary as exemplar, see Schreiner.

(65.) My thanks to David N. Bell for confirming my proposal that the text represented in the exterior panel is illegible.

(66.) Separate studies of Cistercian nuns and their reading practices by David N. Bell and Bondeelle-Souchier show that texts appropriate for the nuns' devotional edification and guidance generally included the Bible, the writings of the Church Fathers, the lives of the saints, and treatises on spirituality and edification, especially Thomas a Kempis' Imitatio Christi.

(67.) This was part of a broader movement toward increased education within the order. In 1490 the Chapter General tried to encourage enrollment at the Cistercian college in Paris, writing, "that the honor and glory of our order depended mostly on the multiplication of literate and learned members." Lekai, 237.

(68.) A.D.N. 31 H 566, fols. 35r-35v.

(69.) This was the case at the convent of Ebstrof when it underwent reform in 1469. The prioress, Gertrude von dem Brake, destroyed the existing "corrupt" choir books and replaced them with new ones. See Hamburger, 1992. 121.

(70.) "Item Une tres belle novisserie pour six ou sept novisses estre et aprendre proprement et honiestement avoec leur maistresse."

(71.) See Daley, Purtle 157-167, and Vandenbroeck, 91-104. The latter illustrates sculpted altarpieces on this theme made by nuns in the southern Low Countries. For a controversy over the appropriateness of the presence and use of these elaborate works within convent choirs, see Harline, 158-62.

(72.) See Benedict, chap. 48, "Daily Manual Labor," 86-7.

(73.) "Omnia operantur er conficiunt quaecumque necessaria sunt ad victum et vestitum ipsarum sororum. Videas enim illic filorum ductrices, textrices telarum ac pannorum, atque tinctrices, calceamentorum confectrices, denique omnium rerum quae usui sororum sunt opifices." Francois de Bar, Historia Episcopatus Atrebatensis et coenobiorum Artesiae, II, fol. 132 ff., Douai, Bibl. Mun. 821, cited by Hautcoeur, 1868, 15, n. 1. The document composed by the convent in response to the accusations of 1509 states that the community had purchased special tools for cloth production in compliance with reform (f. 20v).

(74.) Hall, 83-88.

(75.) While it is clear that one hand of the clock is directed at the 9, the position of the other hand is not definitively rendered. Thus, the clock does not indicate a specific time of day.

(76.) References to the Cistercian rule are cited in Strayer, 458. For docks and time-keeping, see Dohrn-van Rossum.

(77.) In addition to the bibliography on the Retable du Cellier cited below, see Spinson de Jesus in Ainsworth and Christiansen, 332-34.

(78.) Genaille, 1952. Sterling, 20, supports Genaille.

(79.) Will, 124.

(80.) For the art, history and culture of Lichtenthal, see most recently Siebenmorgen.

(81.) As first suggested by Genaille, 1952, 104.

(82.) My thanks to John Monfasani for translating the tide.

(83.) Elm, 1980, 618 and Will, 121-29.

(84.) Will, 124, mentions in passing a similarity in composition between the Retable du Cellier and the woodcut. He characterizes the altarpiece as a "free copy" of the frontispiece. Another example of the theme of the family of Saint Bernard is a painting of ca.1550 by Camillo Orasse. My thanks to James France for bringing this work to my attention.

(85.) Genaille, 1952, 99 and Sterling, 20-21.

(86.) It would not have been unusual for the convent to finance items for others, as the manual of expenses from Flines dating from 1511-12 lists several books that were purchased for the convent's confessor, certainly with Jeanne's approval. A.D.N. 31 H 566, fol. 35v.

(87.) As first proposed by Mely, 107. Sterling, 18-19, suggests that Jeanne presented it to the community of Clairvaux at large. Here I augment Mely's argument by adding documentation for gift-giving at Flines, by expanding upon the links between Foucault and Jeanne de Boubais, and by relating the painting to the concerns of male devotees. A contrasting view on the original destination of the Retable du Cellier is provided by Genaille, 1952, 99-108, who links the triptych to an entry in a Flines manual of expenses, thereby positioning the altarpiece in the chapel of Saint Michael at Flines. The description provided in the manual is far too vague, however, to allow a conclusion of this kind. Baligand rightly argues that the entry more likely refers to a painting commissioned by Flines bursar Isabelle de Malfiance from Bellegambe: this double-sided work represents, on one panel, Saint Michael weighing souls, a suitable subject for the chapel of Saint Michael.

(88.) Letter of 26 December 1507 cited in Hautcoeur, 1872, 237.

(89.) Ibid., 238.

(90.) No confirmed portrait of Foucault that can be used for comparative purposes is known to exist. My thanks to James France for discussing this issue with me.

(91.) Suggested by Genaille, 1952, 104-5. While similarities between the physiognomy of the figure of Humbeline in the Retable du Cellier and Jeanne de Boubais in the Frick diptych are strong, Genaille offers a less convincing example when he compares the features of Humbeline to those of Jeanne in an image from an antiphonary she commissioned in 1511-12, as the features of this "portrait" are too generalized to permit such an identification. On the iconography of Humbeline, see France, forthcoming.

(92.) Genaille, 1961.

(93.) Bernard of Clairvaux, 30-36.

(94.) For the Clairvaux altarpiece, see Quarr and Geiger, entry 11, with bibliography and exhibition history.

(95.) Evidence for the provenance of other devotional portrait diptychs from France and the Low Countries suggests that some were destined for domestic spaces. One example is Hans Memling's 1487 diptych of the Virgin and Child and Marten van Nieuwenhove (Bruges, Memlingmuseum O.C.M.W., Sint-Jans Hospitaal), which remained in the possession of van Nieuwenhove's family until 1640, suggesting that the donor kept the painting in his home for personal use and passed it to his descendants. A second is Rogier van der Weyden's ca. 1450 Triptych of Jean Braque (Paris, Louvre), which was destined for Braque's home. See Bauman, 49.

(96.) References to Margaret's diptychs of Erard de la Marck appear in several primary sources, Two are mentioned in a petition for payment made by Jan Vermeyen in 1533; see Horn, 1:61, n. 52. A third seems to have been disassembled prior to 1523-24. See Eichberger, 302. My thanks to the latter for kindly sharing her manuscript with me prior to its publication. For further elaboration on the ownership and display of devotional portrait diptychs, see Pearson, 2000.

(97.) I am indebted to Conrad Rudolph for bringing this association to my attention.

(98.) For biographies of Guillaume de Bruxelles, see Lavinge, 240-51, and Kesters. I have been unable to consult the latter source.

(99.) Hovey, 80, states that the monk is Guillaume de Bruxelles (Hovey calls him "Guillaume Bollart"), but offers no support for this identification.

(100.) The ciborium, and also the abbatial crozier, may be indications of the spiritual wealth of the community as expressed through its material wealth. Conrad Rudolph has shown that in late medieval monasticism, "reform seems to have been one of several underlying causes permitting the attitude which saw large-scale investment in art as legitimate for monks (...) as the crowning achievement of the physical aspect of that renewal." Rudolph, 36. By the twelfth century, then, lavish artistic programs had become statements for the spiritual prosperity of monastic institutions. McGuire argues that there was little contradiction between the spiritual and the material for the Cistercians in the later Middle Ages.

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