User:Ceoil/sandbox/dukes

The Valois dynasty of Burgundy had less than a century to run when the monastery was founded, and the number of tombs never approached that of their Capetian predecessors at Cîteaux – indeed there would hardly have been room in the choir of the church, where the monuments were. Only two monuments were ever erected, both in the same style with painted alabaster effigies with lions at their feet and angels with spread wings at their heads. Underneath the slab the effigies rested on, unpainted small (about 40 cm high) "pleurants" or mourners ("weepers" is the traditional English term) were set among Gothic tracery. These were described by Johan Huizinga in The Waning of the Middle Ages as "the most profound expression of mourning known in art, a funeral march in stone".

The tombs of the Dukes, now moved to the "Salle de Garde" of their palace in Dijon.

Philip the Bold and John the Fearless

Philip the Bold died in 1404, and his wife Margaret III, Countess of Flanders, the following year. She had decided to rest her remains with those of her parents in Lille, and Philip had been planning a single monument for himself for over twenty years, having commissioned Jean de Marville in 1381. Work did not begin until 1384, and proceeded slowly, with Claus Sluter being put in charge in 1389. At the Duke's death in 1404, only two mourners and the framework were complete; John the Fearless gave Sluter four years to finish the job, but he died after two. His nephew and assistant, Claus de Werve took over and finished the sculptures in 1410. The effigies were painted by Malouel.