Kings MS 446

REPORT by Guillebert de Lannoy (d. 1462) of his travels in Egypt and Syria made at the instance of King Henry V, perhaps in view of a projected Crusade. The title runs: 'Chi sensieut le raport que ie Guillebert de Lannoy cheualier fay sur pluseurs visitations de villes pors et riuieres par moy visitees tant es pays degypte comme de Surie lan de grace nostre Segneur .M.CCCC.XXII. par le commandement de tres excellent prinche le roy Henri dengleterre lors yretier (héritier) et regent de Franche, Et par la license de mon tres doubte segneur et prinche monsegneur le duc de Bourgonge', &c. Written in the third person, the narrator being described as 'le dit messire Guillebert'. Printed from a MS. in the Bodleian Library in Archaeologia, xxi, 1827, with introduction, notes, and translation by John Webb. Embodied also in the author's 'Voyages et Ambassades' (Œuvres de G. de Lannoy, ed. Ch. Potvin, 1878, pp. 99-160). The present MS. is not one of the three mentioned by Potvin (p. 3), but, as its second leaf beg. clerement veoir' and its last beg. '-res eauez', it is probably the MS. which, as he says, was at one time in the library of the Dukes of Burgundy at Brussels but has been missing since 1797 (cf. Barrois, Bibl. Protypographique, 1830, p. 224). A leaf has been cut out at the end, but the text is complete and it was probably blank.

Vellum; ff. 27. 8¹/₂ in. x 6⁵/₈ in. 28 lines in a page. XV cent. (first half). Gatherings, i⁸-iii⁸, iv⁴ (wants last). Sec. fol. (see above). Titles in blue. Chapter-initials two lines deep in colour, chiefly blue and pink, on gold with marginal foliage extensions; paragraph-initials one line deep in gold on pink or blue. On f. 1 four-line initial and full borders of gold foliage with daisies, pinks, &c., and an inner gold bar on three sides with trailing and spiral foliage in pink, blue, and green. Presented to the Royal Library by Granville Penn in 1831. Binding of mottled calf (18th cent.), with loose cover of blue velvet edged with gilt-wire cord (19th cent.).