The Goldsmith and the Peacocks: Jean de le Mote in the Household of Simon de Lille, 1340

Abstract

"The Goldsmith and the Peacocks: Jean de le Mote in the House hold of Simon de Lille, 1340." Simon de Lille was perhaps the most prominent Parisian goldsmith of his day, serving the crown and the upper nobility of France during the first half of the fourteenth century. Among other things, he fashioned for the king the reliquary that housed the head of St. Martin of Tours, an extravagant and politically significant object about which much can be known. In 1340, this wealthy craftsman brought into his Paris home the poet Jean de le Mote, borrowed in wartime from the English court. And he commissioned Jean to compose there Li parfait du paon, an addition to the Peacock Cycle of the Old French Alexander romances. Simon chose the poet, the timing, and the subject- matter. The present article looks at his motives, investigating a network of causal connections among manuscript illumination, orfevrerie, and poetic composition. In the process, it also explains Simon's purpose in commissioning, simultaneously from the same poet, the allegorical Voie d'enfer et de paradis.