The thing (80v & 82r)

[-JKP-]

Some background on Jean Thenaud (I haven't had a chance to double-check this information, but it appears to be from a credible source). He became a Franciscan and was in charge of an abbey, where he wrote some of his books.

The work in which the cosmic spindle image is included was apparently requested by the king, who had an interest in kabbala, and it may not have been an area of Thenaud's expertise before the king requested it because the king apparently wasn't all that happy with the result and asked for a better explanation of kabbala. Thenaud later became an Augustinian and apparently learned or knew how to chart horoscopes.


So... since Thenaud, the Christian monk, may not have known much about the kabbala before producing the manuscript, he may have relied on earlier sources (possibly Hebrew manuscripts or translations of Hebrew manuscripts)? There was apparently a very good library in that region at the time. He also liked to travel, so perhaps he visited other libraries on his journey to Persia. He could probably read Latin, Greek, and French, and quite possibly also Hebrew, since many monks learned Hebrew to read old scriptures, but I couldn't find info on whether he knew Arabic.

I'm really curious about what images might have preceded this one. Since the illuminator may have chosen the imagery, it's also possible that Thenaud didn't have much input into how the picture was drawn. Unfortunately, I don't have time to look up the source of the imagery (a lot of French books were illuminated in Belgium/Flanders) to see if there are precedents for this representation of the spindle.