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Add MS 23929
- Record Id:
- 032-002097572
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-002097572
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000041.0x000376
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Add MS 23929
- Title:
-
Le Roman de Tristan en prose
- Scope & Content:
-
Contents:
The shorter prose version of the Roman de Tristan, comprising the Prologue, Part I (imperfect) and the beginning of Part II, ending at paragraph 512, line 34 in Curtis's edition, Le Roman de Tristan (1976).
ff. 64-86 are in a later hand, perhaps 1375-1425.
The prologue, mostly restored in a 19th-century hand, attributes the translation from Latin to French to 'Luce chevalier e sire del castel del galt voisin prochain de saleberes' (f. 1r). The main text incipit, 'Apres la passion de nostre seignor' (f. 1r) and explicit, 'Le roy marc len mercie moult et dit que iamais ne metra sa fame en telle aventure' (f. 86v).
Decoration:
15 historiated initials with foliate pen-flourishing or partial borders in colours with gold (ff. 1r, 5r, 6r, 7r, 13r, 13v, 16v, 20r, 32v, 34v, 37v, 39r, 40r, 42r, 57v). Numerous small initials in red or blue with pen-flourishing in the other colour (ff. 1-64). Rubrics in red and spaces left for initials (ff. 64v-87r).
The subjects of the miniatures are:
f. 1r: Luces de Gast (Galt) writing;
f. 5r: Sadoc thrown into the sea by fishermen;
f. 6r: King Pelles taking away Apollo, the son of Queen Celinde (Chelinda) wife of King Tanor;
f. 7r: King Tanor is thrown into the sea by Pelles;
f. 13r: Luce, son of Pelles is taken to a rock to be thrown to his death;
f. 13v: Pelias giving Celinde to Sadoc;
f. 16v: The giant telling Sadoc to stay with him;
f. 20r: King Tanor with Celinde's son Apollo;
f. 32v: Apollo and his wife burying his brother, Cicorades;
f. 37v: The birth of Tristan and the death of his mother, Helyabel, wife of King Meliadus of Lyonois, in the forest;
f. 39r: Tristan is given to Gorvernal as a baby;
f. 40r: The wedding of King Meliadus and the daughter of King Hoel;
f. 42r: The death of King Meliadus;
f. 57v: Tristan arrives at a castle beside the sea in Ireland.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Additional Manuscripts
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "032-002097572", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Add MS 23929: Le Roman de Tristan en prose" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002097572
- Is part of:
- not applicable
- Hierarchy:
- 032-002097572
- Container:
- not applicable
- Record Type (Level):
- Fonds
- Extent:
-
A parchment codex, 86 folios.
- Digitised Content:
- http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Add_MS_23929 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- French
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1300
- End Date:
- 1425
- Date Range:
- 1300-1425
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 355 x 255 mm (text space: 260 x 160 mm).
Foliation: ff. 88 (+ 4 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning and 4 at the end + 1 unfoliated parchment flyleaf at the beginning (f. [v]), and one unfoliated parchment leaf after f. 86).
Script: Gothic.
Layout: Written in two columns of 47 lines.
Bindings: Pre-1600. Original Gonzaga binding of stamped leather with motifs including suns and dogs with collars and the remains of metal clasps.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: Italy, N. (Padua or Bologna?).
Provenance:
The Gonzaga family library: perhaps in the inventory of 1407 (no. 63) and retains the original Gonzaga binding (see Middleton, 'The Manuscripts' (2006)).
Gilded initial 'F' in the lower margin of f. 1r (first quarter of the 15th century). Added musical notation on f. [v] recto and rubrics in red (ff. 3v-21v).
An inscription on f. 88r: `Baldeza de grant homo capel de mat' (between 1425 and 1499).
An inscription in a hand of the 19th century has been added at the end (f. 86v), 'Questo libro va inanci a un altro chi comincia. Grant joie fout cil de leans de la roine iseut e dient che voiremant est tristan le mieudres chevalier [en] cornouaille'.
Paul Alexandre de Geslin, Vicomte de Kersolon (b. 1817, d. 1888), Catholic priest and journalist: note on f. [iv] recto.
Bought by the British Museum, on 28 July, 1860, along with three other manuscripts (Additional MSS 23927, 23928 and 23930) through Mr E. Loysel (possibly a pseudonym for de Kersolon) for £60 in total.
- 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:
-
Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the Years 1854-1860 (London: British Museum, 1875), p. 919.
Eilert Løseth, Le Tristan et le Palamède des manuscrits français du British Museum: étude critique (Kristiania, 1905), pp. 3-8.
H. L. D. Ward and J. A. Herbert, Catalogue of Romances in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum, 3 vols (London: British Museum, 1883-1910), I, p. 357.
Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. by Renée L. Curtis, 2 vols (Cambridge: Brewer, 1963-1976), I, p. 34; II, pp. 13, 27.
Emanuèle Baumgartner, 'Le Tristan en Prose': Essai d'interprétation d'un Roman médiévale, Publications Romanes et Francaises, 133 (Genève: Droz, 1975), p. 19.
Jacqueline Thibault Schaefer, 'The Discourse of the Figural Narrative in the Illuminated Manuscripts of Tristan', in Word and Image in Arthurian Literature, ed. by Keith Busby (New York: Garland, 1996), pp. 174-202 (p. 179).
Daniela Delcorno Branca, 'I Tristani dei Gonzaga', in Miscellanea mediaevalia: Mélanges offerts à Philippe Ménard, ed. by J. Claude Faucon, Alain Labbé and Danielle Quéruel, 2 vols (Paris: H. Champion, 1998b), I, pp. 385-93 (p. 390).
Italian Literature: I. Tristano panciatichiano, ed. by Gloria Allaire, Arthurian Archives, VIII (Cambridge: Brewer, 2002), p. 17.
John Haines, 'Lai layout in the Paris Prose Tristan Manuscripts', Scriptorium: Revue internationale des études relative aux manuscrits, 59 (2005), 3-28 (p. 8, n. 24).
Roger Middleton, 'The Manuscripts', in The Arthur of the French, ed. by Glyn S. Burgess and Karen Pratt, Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages, 4 (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2006), pp. 8-92 (p. 81).
Simon Gaunt and others, Medieval Francophone Literary Culture Outside France, http://www.medievalfrancophone.ac.uk/ (see http://www.medievalfrancophone.ac.uk/browse/mss/1/manuscript.html) [accessed 16 July 2015].
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)