Love of order and justice must have also played a part in his temperament. As soon as the old Duke died, his heir changed the pace of his joyous home. “More large communal tables,” said Jules Michelet (1798–1874), “where the officers and Lords ate with the Master, were created. He divided them into different tables where, at the end of the meal, they filed in front of the prince, who noted the absentees; the absentee lost one day’s wages. No other man was more exact, more laborious, etc.”[16] He was a jurist: the rules of human conduct that thought discovered, deepened and showed as necessary, he wanted followed strictly; he did not allow deviations or modifications. These terms were also meant for the lower classes: the hoi-polloi, in order to please him, had to submit entirely and rigorously to the yoke of the law. Here, as with everything, he pushed to the extreme. His rigid and inflexible intelligence was as bold as his bravery. Hence his own extreme irritability; resistance, delays, uncertainty or lack of success shocked him personally; they wounded the very bottom of his audacious, valiant, and despotic nature. Why did events not obey him like his subjects did? He gave orders, and everything seemed possible to him, but for the foundering of his plans. If he encountered weak-willed opposition and the battle was prolonged, he became enraged; he castigated his adversaries. Impatience and pride pushed him to cruelty.
Seeing him after a defeat, you could not judge him by his countenance. During the siege of Neuss, a tiny town, the obstinate courage of the villagers made him beside himself with anger. In his fury, he did not want to rest; he slept in a chair in full armour, thus increasing his exasperation. He forgot only one thing, that the use of crafty methods brought success and doubled one’s strength. His will was so strong, so imperious, that he did not calculate his plans: it seemed that everything must bend before this type of power. But, by the same excess, it became dangerous; ardour, exaggerated and blind, disarmed the prince: it dissolved against obstacles, not like the sea that weakens and sweeps along the rocks, but like the sailor pushed by the waves, whose ship breaks apart against the cliffs.
After the battle of Granson, having drawn back to Lausanne, he experienced unbelievable tortures. His forced inaction, shame and thirst for vengeance stabbed him with a thousand stingers. He remained “in the city, but in his camp on the peak that looked out onto the lake and the Alps. Alone and wild, he left his beard long; he had said that he would not cut it until he saw the Swiss. Finally, he let his doctor, Angelo Catto, see him. The Duchess of Savoy came to console him, bringing silk from her home to dress him; he remained devastated, in as much disorder as Granson had caused.”[17] Following Morat, it was endless despair. How does one bear such complete ruin? He, the bravest of the brave, the imperious master, chivalrous and poetic soul, fled, ran with his head to the ground! Everything evaded him, honour, power, victory! The world laughed, his enemies triumphed. For such a haughty spirit, to yield was to die. A moral blindness struck him, vertigo seized him: a little later, he died pitifully, victim of his own enthusiastic exaggeration and heroic stiffness.
Martin Schongauer, The Holy Family, 1475–1480. Oil on panel, 26 × 17 cm. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.
Hans Memling, Virgin and Child, c. 1467. Oil on oak panel, 40 × 29 cm. Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels.
Anonymous, Virgin and Child, between 1460 and 1500. Oil on oak panel, 29 × 18 cm. Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp.
Charles the Bold’s elevated tastes, his brilliant education, his fastidious love, stimulated him to encourage the arts. He had a large number of sumptuously-decorated manuscripts made, which the Burgundy library still possesses. After Granson and Morat, the Swiss found beautiful objects in his tent; people who visit Berne still admire them. His vehemence began the Netherlands’ misfortune and the fall of the Bruges school, but during his reign everything was under his protection. It is believed that Memling was one of the official painters whom he brought to his wars, and who followed him for most of his life.[18]
The “Official Painter” status signified for Memling membership in Charles the Bold’s court. These opulent and luxurious surroundings were not without influence on the painter and, in consequence, on the treatment of his paintings. We can see the artist’s predilection for the costly and valuable fabrics in which he often dressed his female figures.
The archives of the St Luke Corporation in Bruges allow us to confirm the status of the painter: the name Memling is only found one single time. He could not have been a student because the list of members starts in the year 1453, but as a painter he must have been registered, according to the statutes, when he publicly exercised his profession in the city. Only one single reason could have exempted him from this, that of the position of Official Painter to royalty. This advantage that he obtained has an unwelcome consequence for us: it does not allow us to know during what period he lived in the commune after leaving Brussels, where Rogier Van der Weyden was living, or which students were in his workshop. There is no doubt that he helped to shape many eminent pupils, whom we cannot now name without substituting conjecture for positive proof. Be that as it may, everything seems to confirm the popular tradition that Memling was present on 5 January 1477 at the Battle of Nancy and was obliged, like others, to flee over the snow-covered fields.
Shortly after this cruel defeat, a man of a certain age entered Bruges by the gate that led towards Damme. He was pale and walked along slowly; an illness seemed to deplete his strength, his tattered outfit advertised his poverty. A white blanket of snow hid the dirt from the streets and the roofs of the houses; a black sky unfurled itself over the city, and the wind groaned sadly through the streets. The traveller stopped from time to time, as if nearly fainting, then continued his march. His friends no longer recognised him, or seeing him in such unfortunate circumstances, turned away from him. What was he to do? What resting place to choose? Which charitable heart to implore? The unfortunate man headed towards the hospital, this sanctuary of virtue. He had barely rung the bell of the Saint John monastery when he fell, nearly fainting, to the ground. The monks carried him to one of their rooms, examined him, saw that he was suffering from a wound and lavished their care on him. He had battled his suffering for days; but months of care reinvigourated him, spring chased away the groups of clouds that whitened the plains of the sky. The traveller recovered his health little by little; he spoke of his art, of his paintings, and the great Memling was recognised.
As soon as he was well enough to work, he asked for paint-brushes. Brother Jan Floreins Van der Riist, an amateur painter, procured all the necessary instruments for him. With one hand still unsteady, the poor artist painted several pieces, which he presented to the hospice in recognition of the care that they had given him. At the hospital the remains of Saint Ursula and her Companions were kept in an old reliquary, in fairly poor condition. One day the painter brought up to Jan Floreins the idea of making it a sparkling reliquary, where one could place these relics from another era…but what happened? What cloud came to obscure our view? Lines, colours fading little by little… It is the legend that does not remember and one must ask history for more ample information.
An important but curious fact, although minor, seems to be a witness in favour of popular tradition. In the Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine, one of the paintings that St John’s Hospital possesses, four columns align behind the Virgin’s throne; the chapters on the left represent an angel who announces the birth of Saint John the Baptist to his father Zachariah, then the fulfillment of the prediction. The chapters on the right depict a man who has fallen in the street, to whom someone offers a drink, then he is transported to the hospital on a stretcher. These two miniatures that unfurl almost unnoticed, and discovered by accident, have such a close relationship with the story of the artist that they seem to confirm it. Does Memling not appear to have wanted to recount the sad and curious episode of his arrival at the monastery? It is difficult to believe that such a perfect coincidence was an accident.
Hans Memling, Benedetto Portinari Triptych (central