Les manuscrits de la bibliothèque de la chartreuse d’Utrecht au XVe siècle. Mystique, affect et images

Abstract
The Carthusian monastery of Nieuwlicht near Utrecht is one of the best-known charterhouses of the Low Countries. More precisely, the preservation of more than 150 manuscripts of its library (most of which are nowadays kept at the University Library of Utrecht) offers privileged access to the spiritual life of the monks. This article first presents the manuscript collection of this library, in order to highlight its main orientations and particular features, the most striking of which being the pronounced interest of the Carthusian monks in spiritual literature. More specifically, they show a marked taste for questions relating to mystical theology, with a certain predilection for ‘affective mysticism’. In a second phase, the aim of this essay is to pay close attention to another particular aspect of this library, namely the presence of drawings and miniatures in several manuscripts with mystical texts. At first glance, an association of such texts and images may seem surprising in a medieval manuscript, since there is still a scholarly tendency today to oppose them. A detailed analysis of the manuscript 358 of the University Library of Utrecht – a collection of mystical texts illustrated with three drawings – allows to consider the use of images in Carthusian meditative practices in a new way.