Add Ch 76913-76946 B

FORGED CHARTERS. Thirty-five charters forged at Paris by Eugène-Henri Courtois and Paul Letellier, comprising thirty documents purporting to relate to loans issued during the siege of Acre in 1191 (including two in the name of Philip Augustus and one in the name of Richard the Lionheart), two dated from Jaffa in 1191, one dated from Tyre in 1192, one dated from Paris in 1219, and one dated from Damietta in 1249; circa 1839-1842. The charters were sold to families who wished to establish their right to be represented in the Gallery of the Crusades at Versailles, inaugurated in 1839. These documents were in the collection of a M. Courtois in Paris in 1843-4. A file of translations and certificates of authenticity for these documents is Add. MS. 73522. See further R.-H. Bautier, ‘La Collection de Chartes de Croisade dit “Collection Courtois”’, Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, Comptes rendus des séances (1956), pp. 382-5. Latin. Puchased at Sotheby’s, 7 Dec. 1992, lot 29.