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Add MS 28260

Record Id:

032-002019611

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

032-002019611

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000037.0x00023a

LARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100058662978.0x000001

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Add MS 28260

Title:

Moral and didactic texts in French

Scope & Content:

Contents:

ff. 1r-2r: inserted leaves containing fragments of grammatical treatises in Latin in a 13th-century hand;

ff. 3r-33v: Philip of Novara (Philippe de Novare) (b. 1195, d. c. 1270), Les Quatre Ages de l'Homme, a treatise on the four ages of Man, composed between 1265 and 1270 in the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem; imperfect at the end, with the fourth section lacking;

ff. 35r-83v: the Lucidaire, a French translation of the Elucidarium, attributed to St. Anselm of Canterbury and to Honorius of Autun;

ff. 84r-100v: Li livres des bestes, or Bestiaire de Gervaise, a short moralistic version of the bestiary in French verse, stated in the prologue to have been adapted by 'Gervases' from the Latin. This is the only known copy of the text in French, but the Latin prose version of the Dicta Chrysostomi version of the Physiologus in Sloane MS. 278, ff. 44r-57r is possibly the original of this work.

ff. 101r-v: Inserted leaf containing Petrus de Riga, the Aurora or Latin metrical biblical history: a fragment comprising part of the story of Bel and the Dragon and of the Book of Judith, in a 13th-century hand.

Decoration:

Pen drawings in the margins, some framed, of animals and hybrid creatures including a mermaid, illustrating the bestiary (ff. 85r, 86r, 86v, 87r, 88v, 89r, 89v, 90r, 91r, 91v, 93r) up to the entry for the raven; initials in red, some with pen-flourishing in the same colour at textual divisions (e.g. ff. 3r, 12r, 24v); 'D' for 'deciple' and 'M' for 'mestre, rubrics and line-fillers in red in the Lucidaire (ff. 35r-83v).

Catchwords.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Additional Manuscripts

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "032-002019611", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Add MS 28260: Moral and didactic texts in French" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002019611

Is part of:

not applicable

Hierarchy:

032-002019611

Container:

not applicable

Record Type (Level):

Fonds

Extent:

A parchment codex, 101 folios

Digitised Content:

https://iiif.bl.uk/uv/#?manifest=https://bl.digirati.io/iiif/ark:/81055/vdc_100058662978.0x000001

Thumbnail:

Languages:

French
Latin

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1250

End Date:

1299

Date Range:

2nd half of the 13th century

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Letter of introduction required to use this manuscript.

Physical Characteristics:

Materials: parchment.

Dimensions: 150 x 105 mm (text space: 110 x 750 mm).

Foliation: ff. 101 (+1 unfoliated parchment leaf after f. 83).

Script: Gothic.

Binding: 15th-century French. Stamped leather over wooden boards.

Custodial History:

Origin: France, N.

Provenance:

Johannes Devanteri alias Sapiens (Jehan Devanteri-Savioz?), perhaps Prior of the Confrérie du Saint-Esprit, Muraz in 1471, or his son, also named John: inscribed, 'Jo[hann]is devantorij al[ia]s Sapientis 1502' (ff. 2v, 3r).

The date of 1521 (or 1529) inscribed in another 16th-century hand (f. 34v).

Bought by the British Museum from Librairie Tross, booksellers of Paris, 9 April 1870.

Publications:

Paul Meyer, 'Le bestiaire de Gervaise', Romania, 1, (1872), 420-43 [an edition of the text].

The British Museum Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts, 1861-1875, 2 vols (London: British Museum, 1877), II, pp. 459-60.

Philip of Novara, Les Quatre ages de l'homme, traité moral de Philippe de Navarre, ed. by Marcel de Fréville (Paris: Société des anciens textes français, 1888) [on the text].

Florence McCulloch, Mediaeval Latin and French Bestiaries, North Carolina Studies in the Romance Languages and Literatures, 33 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1960, 2nd edn. 1962), pp. 41-42, 55

Guy R. Mermier, 'The Bestiaire of Gervaise', Papers of the Michigan Academy of Science, Arts and Letters, 53 (1968), 337-52.

Palémon Glorieux, La Faculté des arts et ses maîtres au XIIIe siècle (Paris: Librairie philosophique J. Vrin, 1971), p. 146.

Xenia Muratova, 'Le bestiaire médiéval et la culture normande' in Manuscrits et enluminures dans le monde normand (Xe-XVe siècles) (Caen: Presses universitaires de Caen, 1999), pp. 151-66 (p. 162).

Monica Türk, 'Lucidaire de grant sapientie' :Untersuchung und Edition der altfranzösischen Übersetzung des Elucidarium von Honorius Augustodunensis (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag 2000), p. 22.

Jacqueline Leclercq-Marx, ‘La sirène et l’o(ono)centaure dans le Physiologus grec et latin et dans quelques bestiaries: Le texte et l’image’, in Bestiarires médiévaux: Nouvelles perspectives sur les manuscrits de les traditions textuelles, ed. by Baudouin Van den Abelle, Publications de l’Institut d’études médiévales, Collection Textes, études, congrés, 21 (Louvain: Brepols, 2005), pp. 169-82 (p.

Elisabeth Schulze-Busacker, 'Philippe de Novare, les Quatre âges de l'homme', Romania, 127:1-2 (2009), 104-46 [on the text].

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Related Material:

From the printed Catalogue of Additions (1877):

'1. A TREATISE on the four ages of man, "ce est enfance, iouent, moien aage et uillesce." French. The fourth part is wanting. The prologue begins, "Cil qui fit cest compe auoit Lxx anz passez quant il lemprist," and the text, "Nostre sires dex qui tot set et tot puet et gouerne dona de sa grace as petiz enfanz." f. 3.

2. La Lucidaire; a French translation of the Elucidarium, attributed to St. Anselm of Canterbury and to Honorius of Autun. Beg., "Souentes fois mont requis nostre disciple." See P. Paris, "Les MSS. François de la Bibl. du Roi," ii. 104. f. 35.

3. "Li liures des bestes;" the spiritual application of the Bestiary in French verse. It is stated in the prologue to have been extracted by "Geruases" from the Latin, and St. Chrysostom is referred to as treating of the "semblances des bestes." The prologue begins: "Cil fablaor qui toz iors mantent Et qui de riens ne se desmantent." The text begins: "Trois natures ha li lions Et iii signfficationi;." and ends: "Jci fenist li bestiaires Plus nen auoit en lessemplare Et de mentir seroit folie Qui plus en set plus uos endie Geruaises" qui le romain fit Plus nen troua ne plus nen dit Ci fenist li liures des bestes Dex nos gart nos biens et nos testes." In Sloane MS. 278, f. 44, with part of the work of Hugo de Folieto, "De bestiis et aliis rebus," is a very similar Latin prose treatise, possibly the original of this work. f. 84. At the beginning and end are inserted leaves containing:-Fragments of a Latin grammatical treatise, f. 1;-Fragment of the "Aurora," or Latin metrical Bible History of Petrus de Riga, comprising part of the History of Bel and the Dragon, and of the Book of Judith, f. 101. Vellum; late xiiith cent. Bound in wooden boards, covered with stamped leather, of the xvth cent. On f. 2 b is the note, "Jo[hann]is devantorij al[ia]s Sapientis 1502." Small Quarto.'