Although Matthew made important innovations in
format and narrative in illustrated lives of the saints that
in turn infl uenced the illustration of Apocalypses and
other English manuscripts, in general his work must be
characterized as eccentric and isolated. He apparently
worked apart from the scriptorium at St. Albans and
produced his manuscripts as virtually a one-man effort,
even writing his own fair copy. If he did plan the London
and Cambridge manuscripts, he probably sent them off
to London or Westminster for execution.
Matthew received a special commission as historian
from Henry III and harbored many courtly prejudices,
yet he lived in a monastery away from court and voiced
some remarkably strong antiroyal opinions. Similarly
he was a religious man who had little patience with
the papacy. The unique form and visual content of his
Chronicles, which he surely counted as his greatest
achievement, had no successor and, as a recent scholar
has lamented, have been little studied.
Further Reading
Primary Sources
Lowe, W.R.L., and E.F. Jacob, eds. Illustrations to the Life of St.
Alban. Intro. M.R. James. Oxford: Clarendon, 1924.
Paris, Matthew. Chronica majora. Ed. Henry R. Luard. 7 vols.
Rolls Series. London: Longman, 1872–83.Paris, Matthew. La
estoire de seint Aedward le rei. Ed. Montague Rhodes James.
Oxford: Roxburghe Club, 1920 [facsimile].
Secondary Sources
Backhouse, Janet, and Christopher de Hamel. The Becket Leaves.
London: British Library, 1988.
Hahn, Cynthia. “Absent No Longer: The Saint and the Sign in Late
Medieval Pictorial Hagiography.” In Hagiogmphie und Kunst,
ed. G. Kerscher. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer, 1993, pp. 152–75.
Lewis, Suzanne. The Art of Matthew Paris in the Chronica ma-
jora. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987 [extensive
bibliography and analysis of Chronicle illustrations].
Morgan, Nigel. Early Gothic Manuscripts 1190–1285. 2 vols. A
Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles 4, ed.
J.J.G. Alexander. London: Harvey Miller, 1982–88.
Vaughan, Richard. Matthew Paris. Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 1958.
Cynthia Habn
MAXIMILIAN (1459–1519)
Emperor, patron of the arts, “the last knight,” Maximilian
I Habsburg enjoys a popular modern reputation. As the
son of Emperor Frederick III, Maximilian experienced
a youth tarnished by the wars and defeats his father
suffered. His fi rst important step into politics came in
1473, when his father negotiated with Duke Charles the
Rash of Burgundy for the hand of his daughter, Mary.
Although Charles’s original demand of a royal crown
was too high, the negotiations continued over the next
few years. Then when Charles died unexpectedly at the
Battle of Nancy in 1477, the king of France moved to
seize Mary, who was holding out in Ghent. Maximilian
sealed their marriage fi rst through procurators in April,
and fi nally concluded it in person when he arrived at
the head of a rescuing army in August. Their marriage
became a true love match. The emperor enfeoffed his
son with the lands of the late duke of Burgundy. Yet
Maximilian only truly secured most of the lands in a
series of wars with France. His victory at the battle of
Guinegate in 1479 guaranteed his possession of the
Lowlands and most of Burgundy, some of the richest
lands in Europe.
These new lands were not so easy to hold onto, how-
ever, since the citizens of the prosperous towns disputed
the power of the new dynasty. After Mary died from a
riding accident in 1482, many in the Lowlands openly
rebelled against Maximilian’s authority. Allied with
France, town forces managed to wring from Maximil-
ian the supervision of his children, Philip and Margaret.
Even worse, the city of Bruges took him prisoner for
fourteen weeks in 1488. His rather, in a rare but certainly
necessary act of support, actually gathered an army that
marched on the city, frightening the town into freeing
Maximilian. Returning at the head of his own army,
Maximilian conquered Bruges and many other towns,
completing their defeat by 1493 in the Treaty of Senlis.
In the midst of these confl icts Frederick had managed
to get Maximilian elected king of the Romans in Frank-
furt on February 16, 1486, and crowned in Aachen on
April 9. For the fi rst time in a century a son had followed
as king an imperial father during the father’s lifetime. In
1490 Maximilian replaced his incompetent cousin, Si-
gismund “the Rich in Coins,” as duke of Tyrol. He made
that province, located between Burgundy and Austria
on the way to Italy, and its capital, Innsbruck, the center
of his imperial organization. From there to Mecheln in
the Netherlands he established the fi rst regular postal
route in Europe. The silver of Tyrol helped to fi nance the
reconquest of Austria from Matthias Corvinus, while the
growing business with the Fugger banking family helped
to underwrite many more imperial schemes. But with
interest rates of over 35 percent on loans, Maximilian
rarely had enough cash to fund all his plans.
After Mary’s death, Maximilian fathered several
illegitimate children, but he knew the importance of po-
litical marriages. To gain both cash and leverage against
France, in 1490 Maximilian arranged his marriage by
proxy with the twelve-year-old Anne of Brittany, who
had just inherited that important province on her father’s
death. The next year Charles VIII invaded Brittany, dis-
solved his (unconsummated) marriage to Maximilian’s
daughter Margaret, and, without returning Margaret
or her dowry of Burgundy, married Anne. Maximilian
tried to gather an army to oppose these actions but was
hopelessly outnumbered by French forces and hamperedMAXIMILIAN