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Add MS 34114

Record Id:

032-002025088

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

032-002025088

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000054.0x000137

LARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100076251971.0x000001

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Add MS 34114

Title:

A collection of Romances in French (The 'Spalding Manuscript')

Scope & Content:

Contents:

ff.1r-105r: A Chanson de Geste on the First Crusade with the colophon, 'Ci finist le siege d'Antioche onesque le conquest de Jerusalem de Godefrei de Boilon'; the only other known copy is in Oxford, Bodey Hatton MS 77 (according to Meyer, 'Récit de la première croisade', 1876; includes an edition of the text);

ff. 106r-164r: Roman d'Éneas;

ff. 164-226v: Roman de Thèbes, in a western dialect of Old French, copied from a version of the text close to the original (see Petit (2010), p. 281);

ff. 227-236v: Le Songe Vert, a verse lamentation, composed shortly after the plague of 1348, found in only one other manuscript: Clermont-Ferrand, Bibliothèque communautaire et interuniversitaire, MS 249, f. 50v;

ff. 236v-237v: Ordène de Chevalerie, a set of instructions on the chivalric code, given by Hue de Tabarie to Saladin (imperfect: 170 of 360 lines remaining), copied in a different hand from the preceding texts, in an Anglo-Norman dialect.

All folios have been damaged at the edges, with little loss of text except on f. 237, and have been mounted on paper, or have had the edges filled. Some edges are torn.

Decoration:

Framed initials in colours with gold, with partial borders, one with a hybrid creature, and with the arms of the Spencer family (ff. 1v, 106r, 164r). Initials in gold on a rose and blue ground with pen-flourishing (ff. 113r, 227r). Numerous initials in blue with pen-flourishing in red. Rubrics in red. Running titles and numbering of texts from I-IIII in upper margins. Catchwords.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Additional Manuscripts

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "032-002025088", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Add MS 34114: A collection of Romances in French (The 'Spalding Manuscript')" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002025088

Is part of:

not applicable

Hierarchy:

032-002025088

Container:

not applicable

Record Type (Level):

Fonds

Extent:

Parchment codex

Digitised Content:

https://iiif.bl.uk/uv/#?manifest=https://bl.digirati.io/iiif/ark:/81055/vdc_100076251971.0x000001

Thumbnail:

Languages:

English
French

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1395

End Date:

1405

Date Range:

c 1400

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript

Physical Characteristics:

Materials: parchment.

Dimensions: 380 x 260 mm (text space: 280 x 160/75 mm).

Layout: Written in two columns.

Foliation: ff. 237 (+ 2 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning and 3 at the end).

Script: Gothic cursive.

Binding: Post-1600. Dark blue/black leather with gilt tooling; marbled end-papers.

Custodial History:

Origin: England.

Provenance:

Henry de Spencer, crusader and Bishop of Norwich (b. 1370, d. 1406): the Spencer coat of arms with bishop's mitres (ff.106r, 164r).

Maurice Johnson (b. 1815, d. 1861) of Ayscoughfee Hall, Spalding: his bookplate on f [ii] recto.

Mrs I.M. Johnson (d. 1905), bought from her by the British Museum on 15 December, 1891: note on f. [ii] recto.

Information About Copies:

Full digital coverage available for this manuscript: see Digitised Manuscripts at http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts.

Select digital coverage available for this manuscript, see Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/welcome.htm.

Publications:

Paul Meyer, Meyer 'Un Récit en vers français de la première croisade fondé sur Baudri de Bourgueil', Romania, 5 (1876), 1-63.

Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the Years 1888-1893 (London: British Museum, 1894), pp. 201-02.

Léopold Constans, 'Le songe vert', Romania, 33 (1904), 490-539 [contains an edition of this manuscript].

Ethel Seaton, 'Le Songe Vert: its Occasion of Writing and its Author,' Medium Aevum, 19 (1950), 1-16.

'Le Roman des Eles', and the Anonymous: 'Ordene de Chevalerie': Two Early Old French didactic poems, ed. by Keith Busby (Utrecht: John Benjamins, 1983), p. 75.

Le Roman de Thèbes: Édition du manuscrit S (Londres, Brit. Libr. Add. 34114), ed. by Francine Mora Lebrun (Paris: Livre de poche, 1995).

Ruth Dean and Maureen Bolton, Anglo-Norman Literature, A Guide to Texts and Manuscripts (London: Anglo-Norman Text Society, 1999), no. 706r.

Christopher Baswell, 'Aeneas in 1381', New Medieval Literatures, 5 (2002), 7-58 (pp. 40-58).

Keith Busby, Codex and Context: Reading Old French Verse Narrative in Manuscript, 2 vols (Amsterdam-New York: Rodopi, 2002), II, pp. 766.

Christopher Baswell, 'England's Antiquities: Middle English Literature and the Classical Past' in A Companion To Medieval English Literature and Culture C.1350 - C.1500, ed. by Peter Brown (Oxford: Blackwell, 2009), pp. 231-46 (pp. 233-34).

Aimé Petit, Aux Origines du Roman: Le Roman de Thèbes (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2010), pp. 282-93.

R. F.Yeager, ’L'Ordene de Chevalerie, British Library Additional MS 34114, and the Flanders Crusade' (unpublished extract, from the Fordham University Conference, The French of Outremer, New York, March 2014) [accessed 28.08.14].

The Oxford History of Classical Reception in English literature, ed. by Rita Copeland, 5 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012- ), I, 800-1558 (2016), p. 248, n. 30.

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Names:

Johnson, Maurice, of Ayscough Fee Hall, Spalding, 1815-1861
Spencer, Henry, Bishop of Norwich (1370-1406), fl. 1370-1406

Related Material:

From the printed Catalogue of Additions (1894):

'The Spalding Manucript, a collection of Romances in French verse, as follows:-

1. Chanson de Geste on the First Crusade; in nearly 19,000 Alexandrines. With the colophon: " Ci finist le siege d'Antioche ouesque le conquest de Jerusalem de Godefrei de Boilion." ff. 2- 105. The text differs very much from the Chanson d'Antioche published by Paulin Paris in 1848, and (except in subject) seems to have no connection with it, or with the Chanson on Godfrey of Bouillon in Roy. 15 E. vi., ff. 278 b-289 (for which see Catalogue of Romances, vol. i., 1883, p. 708). Another copy is in the Bodley MS., Hatton 77: see Romania, vol. v., 1876, pp. 1-61 where M. Paul Meyer has printed several hundred lines from both MSS.

2. Roman d'Énéas; in more than 10,000 octosyllabic lines. ff. 106- 164. A copy (wanting about 130 lines at the end) is in Add. 14,100: see Cat. of Romances, i. p. 82, and Gaston Paris, La littératurefrançaise au Moyen Age, 2nd ed., 1890, pp. 78, 263.

3. Roman de Thèbes, taken from Statius; in more than 11,000 octosyllabic lines. ff. 164-226 b. Other copies are in the Bibliothèque Nationale: see Paulin Paris, Les MSS. François, vols. i. p. 67, iii. p. 190, and cf. Gaston Paris, Litt. franç., pp. 78, 263.

4. Le Songe vert: an allegorical poem of the 14th century, in more than 1650 octosyllabic lines. fF. 227-236 b. After the plague of " 1148 " (according to the conjecture of M. Paul Meyer) the author puts on a black dress, and wanders into an orchard. He is; consoled by a vision of Love, etc. ; and he comes back with his dress a bright green. The first 60 and the last 9 lines have been printed in Romania, vol. v. pp. 61-3. Otherwise the poem appears to be unknown.

5. Ordène de Chevalerie: the instruction in chivalry given by Hue de Tabarie to Saladin. Added in a different hand from the preceding articles. Imperfect, only about 170 octosyllabic lines remaining, some of them mutilated. If. 236 b-237 b. Another copy is in Harl. 4333, ff. 115-117 b (Cat. of Romances, i. p. 811). Vellum; fF. 237. With illuminated borders. Written in England, circ. 1400. With the arms of Spencer in two of the illuminated borders, one of the shields being within a bordure azure with bishops' mitres on it, referring to Henry de Spencer, Bishop of Norwich (1370-1406). From the Library of Maurice Johnson, of Ayscough Fee Hall, Spalding. Folio.'