Most beautiful and next best: value in the collection of a medieval queen

The 1396 will of Blanche of Navarre (c.1331–98), dowager queen of France, has long been of interest to scholars for the extraordinary detail of its bequests; it is unusual in that it describes the provenance of many of the objects that Blanche owned, and in some cases elaborates on the motivation of the queen for bestowing an object on a particular heir. It is a document of the personal history of collecting for a medieval woman — how her books, reliquaries and other valuable objects came into her possession, what their particular history was, and how she perceived their value — all evidence that is extremely rare for the history of women and collecting in the middle ages. In this paper I suggest that the great detail of the descriptions in Blanche's will derives from a concern about authenticity; the queen, an avid collector of artworks and relics, had been accused of acquiring a fake relic. Through the extraordinary detail of the provenance of her works, Blanche could ensure the value of her works, and safeguard her legacy and the reputation that was carried in these gifts through association long after her death. Her interest in authenticating her possessions has created for the modern reader a trove of evidence about how works of art were exchanged between family members and how value was assigned and understood in a medieval collection.