Harley MS 1629

Contents:

Les Prophecies de Merlin, is a prose compilation of romance material from Arthurian sources, together with original political prophecies relating to Italian events of the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries. The text, originating in Venice circa 1276, is primarily a series of political prophecies, as related by Merlin to various fictional scribes, and the amount of romance material embedded around these prophecies varies among the 20 extant manuscripts. The earliest manuscript, Rennes, Bibliotheque Municipale, MS 593, dated to 1303, attributes the text to Maistre Richart d’Irlande and claims that it is a translation commissioned by Emperor Frederick II, although scholars agree that the author must have been a Venetian. Between 1324 and 1330, the French work was translated into Italian by Paolino Pieri, a Florentine chronicler.

The present manuscript consists of three incomplete portions of the text (misbound, in that the first surviving quire, which should have preceded f. 1, is bound as ff. 33-40) followed by two fragments of 2 folios each:

ff. 33r-40v, ff. 1r-8v: Begins at Merlin's meeting with the three Roman messengers, incipit, '...mierlins regarde biertoul'; explicit, 'sera tant preus et tant vistes q[ue]', followed by the catchwords, 'il sera redoutes p[ar] toutes..';

ff. 9r-32v: Begins with the damsel sent by Merlin to Maistre Antoine, incipit '...en gales et droitement a maistre antoine'; explicit, 'et par lor preecemens seront', followed by the catchwords 'dounees unes grans p[ar]ties';

ff. 41r-64v: Begins with Brehus and Thomas's daughter, incipit, '..Thomas que con est brehus ki sa fille'; explicit, 'avoit en lui grant de', followed by the catchwords, 'prouece et lors laiscent core';

ff. 65r-66v: Two loose leaves relating to a knight and the damsel 'flours de lis';

ff. 69r-70v: An excerpt from the adventures of Palamedes and Saphar and of Dynadam.

Additional MS 25343 contains a more complete version of the text.

Decoration:

2 small miniatures in gold and colours with partial foliate bar borders extending into the margin ending in an animal head, of a cleric praying by Merlin's tomb, with a female figure standing in the margin (f. 29v), and of Dynadam writing in a cemetery by the tomb of Pendragon, with a hybrid creature in the margin (f. 70r). Excised miniature with a partial bar border ending in a human head and a dragon with knotted tail (f. 47v). Initials in red or blue with pen-flourishing in the other colour.

By the same Douai artist as Le Mans, Bibliothèque municipal ms 354, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS fr. 770, Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Digby 223 and perhaps Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS fr. 342, according to Stones, Gothic manuscripts (2013). Delcourt includes Add MS 17443 in this group (La légende du roi Arthur, ed. by Thierry Delcourt (Paris: Bibiothèque nationale de France, 2009), p. 115).