This miniature once marked the beginning of the Suffrage to St Giles in a Parisian book of hours. Suffrages were prayers to saints and an important component of these prayer books. St Giles was born in Athens in the mid-7th century; later he lived as a hermit in a forest between Arles and Nîmes in the south of France. The Golden Legend, a famous work containing the lives of the saints, recounts how he survived on milk from a tame doe. One day the king, while out hunting, wounded both the deer and St Giles. This is the scene depicted here in the lower border. In penance for this action, he built a monastery of which Giles became the abbot. This is the famous monastery of St Gilles-du-Gard, near Arles, which was to become an important place of pilgrimage in the Middle Ages.
The main miniature shows another scene recounted in a 10th-century life of St Giles. According to this source, an angel came down from heaven while the saint was celebrating a mass for the pardon of Emperor Charlemagne’s sins, and delivered a document revealing a sin Charlemagne had never dared confess. Here, Charlemagne is depicted kneeling in prayer behind the saint who is standing at the altar, with his hands joined. An angel is coming down holding a scroll with an inscription outlining that Giles is seeking pardon for Charlemagne.
Three more leaves from this manuscript are in the Museum’s collection, all coming from the book’s Suffrages section.
The scenes in this manuscript are attributed to the Dunois Master, once known as 'The principal associate of the Bedford Master'. The Bedford Master took his name from two outstanding manuscripts made for John of Lancaster, Duke of Bedford and brother of Henry V, victor at Agincourt in 1415. The Bedford Master's style was widely practised in Paris. The Dunois Master appears to have adopted most closely the painting style and models of the Bedford Master.