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Cotton MS Otho D II
- Record Id:
- 040-001102896
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-001101582
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000001273.0x00020a
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100165159378.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Cotton MS Otho D II
- Title:
-
A collection of travellers' accounts of the East, including La Fleur des Histoires de la terre d'Orient, translated by Jean d'Ypres; Jean d'Arras, Roman de Melusine
- Scope & Content:
-
Contents:
Six texts on the Orient, including a set of letters, compiled and translated into French in 1351 by Jean d'Ypres or Jean le Long, Abbot of St Bertin from 1365 to 1383 (ff. 1-85v); Jean d'Arras, Roman de Melusine (ff. 86r-150v).
The foliation for the contents is that of the re-mounted and re-bound volume; in some places it is approximate as the text is fragmentary; the foliation in brackets is that of the original volume, catalogued in 'Books destroyed or defaced in the Prefs called Otho' in A Report from the Committee Appointed to view the Cottonian Library (London: R. Williamson, 1732), pp. 79, 80.
f. 1r-v: A list of contents in an early modern hand;
ff. 2r-5v: Table of rubrics;
ff. 6r-37r: Jean Hayton (ff. 6r-41v), (b. c. 1245, d. 1310/1314), La Fleur des Histoires de la terre d'Orient (or Flos Historiarum), Books I-III (Book IVis omitted): Book I is a description of 14 kingdoms of Asia, Book II is a summary of the Arab and Turkish dynasties from Muhammad to the 13th century, and Book III is a history of the Mongols from Genghis Khan to the 14th century. Jean Hayton was an Armenian noble, Lord of Korikos, who became a canon of the Premonstratian abbey of Bellapais in Cyprus, then moved to Poitiers, France, where in 1307 he dictated this work to Nicolas Falcon at the request of Pope Clement V;
ff. 37v-61r (41v-60r): Ricaldo de Montecroce or Riccoldo da Monte di Croce (b. c. 1243, d. 1320), Liber Peregrinacionis or Itinerarium. Montecroce was a Dominican missionary and Islamic scholar from Florence, who travelled extensively in the near East and composed this guide-book for missionaries, probably in 1288-91 while he was in Baghdad;
ff.61r-?70r (ff. 60r-84r): Oderic de Pordenone or Oderic de Frioul (b. c. 1285, d. 1331), Itinerarium, written in 1329-1330;
ff. ?70r-80v (ff. 84r-95v): Guillaume de Bondeselle, An account of a pilgrimage to Palestine and Egypt, written in 1336;
ff. 80v-82v (ff. 95v-98r): Letters between the Grand Khan of Cathay and Pope Benedict XII in 1328;
ff. 83r-85v (ff. 98r-101r): Jean de Core or John of Cori, Archbishop of Sultaniya from 1329, Le livre du Grant Caan, a report compiled in c. 1330 on a Franciscan mission to China;
ff. 86r-150v (ff. 101r-?): Jean d'Arras, Roman de Melusine or La Noble Histoire de Lusignan, composed in 1392-1393 by d'Arras, who was secretary to Jean, duc de Berry (b. 1340, d.1416);
ff. 147r-150v: Fragments.
Decoration:
One two-column-width miniature with a decorated initial beneath and full rinceaux border in colours with gold (f. 6r). Numerous single-column width miniatures (97 remaining, of which some are fragmentary) with a decorated initial beneath and partial rinceaux border in colours with gold. Initials in gold on blue and rose grounds. Line fillers in blue and rose with gold. Rubrics in red.
The subjects of the miniatures include:
f. 6r: A group of tonsured monks, having disembarked from sailing ships, greeting a robed emperor; a seated figure with a book in a pavilion, perhaps Jean d'Ypres;
f. 6v: The kingdom of China ('Cathay');
f. 7r: The kingdom of Tarshish ('Tarse');
f. 7v: The kingdom of Turkestan ('Turquesten'); the kingdom of Chorasmia ('Chorasme');
f. 8r: The kingdom of Comania, now part of Russia, between Georgia and Ukraine ('Comanie');
f. 8v: The kingdom of India ('Inde');
f. 9r: The kingdom of Persia ('Perse)'; the kingdom of Armenia ('Arménie');
f. 9v: The kingdom of Media ('Médie');
f. 10r: The kingdom of Georgia ('Georgie');
f. 10v: The kingdom of Chaldea ('Caldée');
f. 11r: The kingdom of Mesopotamia ('Mesopotamye'); the kingdom of Turkey ('Turquye)';
f. 12r: The kingdom of Syria ('Sirie');
f. 12v: Khosroès, king of the Persians, capturing a city from the Romans; the Saracens defeating Heraclius;
f. 13v: A battle between the Saracens and the Persians;
f. 14r: The Turks paying homage to the Caliph of Baghdad;
f. 14v: A Saracen revolt;
f. 15v: The Corasmiens conquering Asia Minor;
f. 16v: The death of Genghis Khan;
f. 19r: Ogodai Khan, Emperor of the Tartars, sending his 3 sons to conquer Asia;
f. 20v: Mongka Khan sailing to China; one of the sons conquering Turkestan;
f. 21r: The second son conquering Comania, now ;
f. 21v: The third son of Ogodai Khan joins the second son; Hayton, King of Armenia, bringing gifts to Mongka Khan.
f. 23v: The Tartars under Hulagu attack Baghdad;
f. 24r: The Tartars conquering Aleppo;
f. 25v: A battle between the sultan of Egypt and the Tartars; the wise Khan Abaqa on his throne;
f. 26r: A battle between Baybar, sultan of Egypt and the Tartars;
f. 28r: Takudar, Khan of the Tartars, in a mosque;
f. 29r: Argun, son of Aqaba, on his throne;
f. 45r: The burials of the Tartars and their horses;
f. 47r: Genghis Khan on his throne;
f. 48r: The city of Baghdad ('Baldach');
f. 49v: The Kurds ('Curtres') living in caves;
f. 50v: The city of Nineveh, with the well of Jonas; the Dominicans of the monastery of St Matthew at Mosul;
f. 61r: The city of Tabriz ('Thoris');
f. 61v: The city of Sodom ('Somdoma');
f. 62r: Chaldea, Southern Babylonia ('Caldée');
f. 62v: The city of Hormuz ('Orènes');
f. 65v: The province of Malabar ('Munibar');
f. 66v: The gold statue of St Thomas in the church of 'Mobarum', in India;
f. 67v: Children for sale on the island of Sumatra ('Lamory'); the seven kings of the island of Java '(Fana');
f. 68r: The cities and palm trees of the island of Bintan ('Natem');
f. 68v: The King of Tchampa, now South Vietnam ('Campe') with his 200 children and 14 000 elephants;
f. 69r: People with dogs' faces worshipping a cow, on the islands of Nichomaran (Nicobar);
f. 74r: A tonsured monk, perhaps representing Guillaume de Bondeselle arriving at the gate of a monastery, with the Red Sea in the background;
f. 75v: A tonsured monk praying before the tombs of the patriarchs at Hebron;
f. 80v: Messengers delivering letters to a figure seated on a throne, perhaps the Pope;
f. 83v: The Grand Khan of Cathay;
f. 91v: The tower at Lusignan;
f. 95v: A battle at sea;
f. 106v: Urien and Hermine are united at the deathbed of the King of Cyprus;
f. 113v: Guy de Lusignan and his fleet arrive at Courc in Armenia;
f. 120v: Antoine and Renaud de Lusignan leave for Luxembourg;
f. 123r: A messenger from King Frederick of Bohemia delivers a message to the King of Alsace in Luxembourg.
(The miniatures that are lost or fragmentary are not included in the above).
Attributed to the Master of the Epître d'Othea, the illuminator of Paris, BnF, MS fr. 606 by François Avril, 'La peinture française' (1975).
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Cotton Collection
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-001101582
040-001102896 - Is part of:
- Cotton MS : Cotton Manuscripts
Cotton MS Otho D II : A collection of travellers' accounts of the East, including La Fleur des Histoires de la terre d'Orient, translated by… - Hierarchy:
- 032-001101582[0770]/040-001102896
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Cotton MS
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
-
A parchment codex
- Digitised Content:
- http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_100165159378.0x000001 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- French
French, Middle - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1400
- End Date:
- 1415
- Date Range:
- 1400-1415
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- Physical Characteristics:
-
Condition: leaves damaged by fire in 1731.
Materials: parchment.
Dimensions: 305 × 230 mm. Written in two columns.
Foliation: ff. 150 (f. 1 is a parchment flyleaf + 5 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning and 6 at the end).
Script: Gothic cursive.
Binding: BM/BL in-house. Rebound in 1962.
- Custodial History:
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Origin: France.
Provenance:
John [John of Lancaster], duke of Bedford (b. 1389, d.1435), regent of France and prince, probably purchased by him as part of the library of Charles VI of France after his death in 1422.
Jacquetta (b. 1415/16, d. 1472), daughter of Pierre de Luxemburg and second wife of John of Lancaster, duke of Bedford, inherited by her: her signature was on the last folio, lost in the Cottonian fire of 1731. An earlier catalogue entry for this volume (Smith, Catalogus Bibliothecae Cottonianae (Oxford, 1696)) states, ' Liber iste...olim pertenebat ad D. Jaquettam Luxemburgicam, Ducissam Bedfordiae, ut illa propria manu in fine libri testatur'.
Sir Robert Bruce Cotton, 1st baronet, antiquary and politician (b. 1571, d. 1631): added contents table on f. 1r and recorded in the early catalogue of his collection, started before his death in 1631, now Additional 36682. Cotton’s collection was augmented by his son, Sir Thomas Cotton, 2nd baronet (b. 1594, d. 1662), and his grandson, Sir John Cotton. The present manuscript was noted as missing in the checklist of 1656/7 (f. 1v) but was restored to the Cotton library in 1683 by Thomas Gale, according to a note on f. 1r (see Colin G. C. Tite, The Early Records of Sir Robert Cotton’s Library: Formation, Cataloguing, Use (London: The British Library, 2003), pp. 155, 250).
Sir John Cotton, 3rd baronet (b. 1621, d. 1702): bequeathed the entire Cotton collection of books and manuscripts to trustees ‘for Publick Use and Advantage’, 12 and 13 William III, c. 7. Formed one of the foundation collections of the British Museum in 1753.
- Information About Copies:
-
Full digital coverage available for this manuscript: see Digitised Manuscripts at http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts.
- Publications:
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Andreose, Alvise and Philippe Ménard, Le Voyage en Asie d'Odoric de Pordenone traduit par Jean Le Long: Itineraire de la Peregrinacion et du Voyaige (1351), Textes Littéraires Français, 602 (Geneva: Droz, 2010), p. xlii.
d'Arras, Jean, Mélusine, ou, La Noble histoire de Lusignan: roman du XIVe siècle, trans. by Jean-Jacques Vincensini (Paris: Lettres Gothiques, 2003) [on the text].
Avril, François, 'La peinture française au temps de Jean de Berry', Revue de l'Art, 28 (1975), 40-52 (pp. 45-46).
Colwell, Tania M. 'Patronage of the poetic Melusine Romance: Guillaume l'Archeveque's confrontation with dynastic crisis', Journal of Medieval History, 37 (2011), 215-29 (pp. 216, 218).
Gadrat, Christine, 'De statu, conditione ac regimine magni canis: L'original latin du Livre de l'Estat du Grant Caan et la question de l'auteur', Bibliothèque de l'Ecole des Chartes, 165/2 (2007) 355-71 (pp. 356-57).
Jean d'Ypres, Die Geschichte der Mongolen des Hethum von Korykos (1307) in der Rückübersetzung durch Jean le Long, 'Traitez des estas et des conditions de quatorze royaumes de Aise', Kritische Edition mit parappeleom Abdruck des lateinischen Manusciripts Wroclaw, Bibliotheka Uniwertytecka, R 262, ed. by Sven Dörper, (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1998), ms T, pp. 78-79.
Möhren, Frankwalt ed., Dictionnaire Etymologique de l'ancien francais: Complément Bibliographique 2007 (Tubingen: Neimeyer, 2007), p. 367.
Robecchi, Marco, 'Notice sur un nouveau témoin de la Mélusine en prose de Jean d'Arras', Medioevi, 1 (2015), 209-217.
Smith, Thomas, Catalogus Librorum Manuscriptorum Bibliothecae Cottonianae, reprinted from Sir Robert Cotton's copy, annotated by Humphrey Wanley, ed. by Colin G.C. Tite (Cambridge: Brewer, 1984), pp. 74, 75.
Sutton, Anne F. and Livia Visser-Fuchs, Richard III’s Books: Ideals and Reality in the Life and Library of a Medieval Prince (Stroud, Gloucestershire, Sutton, 1997), p. 223, n. 37.
Willard, Charity Cannon, 'The Duke of Berry's Multiple Copies of the Fleur des Histoires d'Orient' in From Linguistics to Literature: Romance Studies offered to Francis M. Rogers, ed. by Bernard H. Bichakjian (Amsterdam: John Benjamin, 1981), pp. 281-92 (pp. 282, 285, 289).
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)