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Add MS 38117
- Record Id:
- 040-002057327
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-002057322
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000001102.0x0003aa
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100057739610.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Add MS 38117
- Title:
- Robert de Boron, Joseph d'Arimathie, Le Livre de Merlin, Suite de Merlin ('the Huth Manuscript')
- Scope & Content:
-
Contents:
Three prose texts associated with Robert de Boron's Arthurian romances:
ff. 1r-18r: Joseph d'Arimathie, a prose version of Robert de Boron's poem, imperfect at the beginning and begins at l. 65 of the text (O'Gorman 1995, p. 49);
ff. 18v-74r: Le Livre de Merlin, the story of Merlin's birth and life up to the coronation of Arthur, perhaps a prose version of a poem by Robert de Boron, now lost;
ff. 74r-226v: Suite de Merlin, lacking one leaf after f. 101 and two after f. 133; also known as the Post-Vulgate suite, one of two surviving copies of the text that is the source for part of Malory's Morte Arthu, attributed to Robert de Boron but believed to have been compiled by a later author. The other copy is in Cambridge, University Library, Additional MS 7071.
Copied in the Picard dialect of Old French.
Decoration:
69 historiated initials and miniatures in colours and gold at the beginning of chapters, some partially erased, depicting scenes from the text. Partial bar borders with hybrid creatures, animals and human figures. Puzzle initials with pen-flourished decoration in red, blue and gold. Line-fillers in colours with gold.
The subjects of the miniatures are:
Joseph d'Arimathie:
f. 2v: Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus take Christ down from the Cross;
f. 8v: Vespasian and Veronica, with the veil showing the image of Christ, free Joseph of Arimathea from prison;
f. 11v: Vespasian takes Joseph before the Jews in Jerusalem;
f. 12r: Joseph preaching to sinners before an altar with the Grail displayed on it;
f. 17v: Alain leads his brothers, the children of Bron on a quest for the Grail;
Le Livre de Merlin:
f. 18v: The descent in to hell (left); historiated initial at the beginning of 'Livre de Merlin' of the council of demons, mostly erased (right);
f. 29r: Merlin and his mother before the judge with two men;
f. 30v: Merlin before Blaise, asking him to write the story of the Grail;
f. 32r: Vortigern is crowned king; the English set off to fight the Saxons;
f. 38v: Merlin, King Vortigern and the clerics before the falling tower;
f. 42r: Pendragon burns the castle;
f. 45v: Meeting of Merlin and Blaise; Pendragon consulting his brother Uther;
f. 48r: Merlin takes leave of Uther and Pendragon;
f. 50v: Meeting of Merlin and Blaise;
f. 53r: The battle between Uther and Pendragon at Salisbury;
f. 58v: King Uther besieging a duke in a castle while he pines for Ygerne;
f. 63v: Marriages of Utherpendragon to Ygerne (Igerne) and of King Loth to Orcanie, Ygerne's daughter, each celebrated by a cleric in white;
f. 66r: Merlin at Arthur's baptism;
f. 68r: The barons assemble at the death of King Uther;
Suite de Merlin:
f. 73v: Arthur removes the sword from the stone and is blessed by Archbishop Brice;
f. 76r: Merlin disguised as a child, appears before Arthur, who is out hunting;
f. 79v: Merlin meets Arthur hunting in the forest with birds;
f. 84r: King Arthur is seated at the table at Carduel when a knight on horseback rides in carrying a wounded man;
f. 86v: Girflet with a lance riding up to a pavilion with a shield hanging in a tree outside;
f. 87r: Girflet and Pellinor, the knight of the pavilion, fight;
f. 97v: King Arthur sets the children of Logres adrift in a boat;
f. 102v: King Arthur frees the Lady of Avalon from the sword;
f. 105v: Balin and his brother Balan on horseback meet King Rion;
f. 111v: King Arthur and Merlin talking;
f. 112r: A battle at Logres; two knights arrive at a hermitage;
f. 120v: King Arthur and Morgan;
f. 123v: King Arthur at court; the knight with two swords meets a maiden;
f. 126r: Balin and Balan meet Merlin in a white robe;
f. 131r: Balin or the knight with two swords with his host and a maiden;
f. 135r: The knight meets a lady in a forest;
f. 140r: The knight with two swords meets the father of a wounded man;
f. 142r: Balin and Balan fighting to the death;
f. 147r: The King of Leodegan (Leodegrance), father of Guinevere, at table with his courtiers and Merlin asking for the hand of his daughter for King Arthur;
f. 150r: Gawain and Arthur talking, with courtiers watching;
f. 152v: Merlin seated at table with King Pellinor and King Arthur;
f. 155r: Gawain and Gahariet meet two knights fighting in a field;
f. 160r: The two knights are taken to prison;
f. 161v: Merlin at Arthur's court;
f. 163v: Tor, son of Pellinor, meets a knight and a dwarf at a pavilion;
f. 169r: Pellinor leaving his court to follow a knight who is abducting a maiden;
f. 178r: Merlin revealing to King Arthur that Tor is Pellinor's son; King Pellinor and his son, Tor;
f. 179v: Merlin and Ninianne or the Lady of the Lake at court;
f. 185r: Merlin and Ninianne come upon two harpists on thrones;
f. 186r: The maiden watches as Merlin sets the two harpists on fire with sulphur;
f. 187r: King Arthur and Guinevere are seated at table in Camelot and knights on horseback arrive;
f. 193r: King Arthur blowing a horn while hunting with Urien and Accalon, Morgan's lover;
f. 195v: A dwarf brings Accalon word from Morgan;
f. 197v: King Arthur in captivity in a tower with other knights;
f. 199r: Morgan speaking to King Arthur (left) and to Queen Guinevere (right);
f. 200r: Merlin feasting with his host;
f. 202v: Death of Merlin;
f. 203v: Morgan gives Arthur the fake Excalibur;
f. 206r: Battle between Arthur and Accalon;
f. 209r: Morgan is about to kill the sleeping Urien with a sword, but is stopped by Yvain;
f. 216r: Four knights riding in a forest;
f. 224r: Ninianne or the Lady of the Lake saves Arthur from a poisoned mantle sent by Morgan.
Attributed to the Master of St Benoit's workshop (Delcourt, Roi Arthur, 2009)
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Additional Manuscripts
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002057322
040-002057327 - Is part of:
- Add MS 38114-38126 : HUTH BEQUEST. The following thirteen MSS., 38114-38126, were included amoung the fifty books to be selected from his…
Add MS 38117 : Robert de Boron, Joseph d'Arimathie, Le Livre de Merlin, Suite de Merlin ('the Huth Manuscript') - Hierarchy:
- 032-002057322[0003]/040-002057327
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Add MS 38114-38126
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
-
A parchment codex, 226 folios
- Digitised Content:
- https://iiif.bl.uk/uv/#?manifest=https://bl.digirati.io/iiif/ark:/81055/vdc_100057739610.0x000001
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- French
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1300
- End Date:
- 1399
- Date Range:
- 14th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 300 x 220 mm (text space: 230 x 140 mm) written in two columns.
Foliation: ff. 226 (+ 1 unfoliated medieval parchment pastedown at the beginning and at the end).
Script: Gothic.
Binding: Pre-1600: leather over wooden boards with traces of clasps.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: France, N. (Arras).
Provenance:
Charles du Fresne, Sieur du Cange (1610-1688), historian and philologist from Amiens, France: his inscription on f. 1 (see Delcourt, Roi Arthur, 2009).
Jacques Joseph Guillaume Pierre, Comte de Corbière (1766-1853), academic and bibliophile, French minister of the interior: his notes and inscription on f. 1r.
Librairie Bachelin-Deflorenne, Paris publisher and bookseller, acquired after the death of de Corbière.
Alfred Henry Huth (b. 1850, d. 1910), book collector: purchased by him for £250, c. 1870 (see Paris and Ulrich, Merlin, Roman en Prose (1886)). His bookplate and number inside the front cover and in his catalogue: The Huth Library, 5 vols (London: Ellis & White, 1880), III, pp. 954-57; bequeathed by him to the British Museum in 1910 (see Catalogue of the Huth Bequest (1912), pl. 4).
- Publications:
-
J. A Herbert, Illuminated Manuscripts and Bindings of Manuscripts Exhibited in The Grenville Library, Guide to the Exhibited Manuscripts, 3 (Oxford: British Museum, 1923), p. 37, no. 4.
Robert de Boron, Merlin, Roman en Prose du XIIIe siècle, Société d'Anciens Textes Français, 2 vols, ed. by Gaston Paris and Jacob Ulrich (Paris: Librairie Firmin Didot, 1886), I, pp. i-iv, 1-280, II, pp. 1-254 [an edition of the text in this manuscript].
Alexandre Micha, 'Les Manuscrits du Merlin en Prose', Romania, 79 (1958), 78-94 (p. 88).
Fanni Bogdanow, 'Essai de Classement des Manuscrits de la Suite du Merlin', Romania, 81 (1960), 188-98 (pp. 188-90).
Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts 1911-1915, ed. by T.C. Skeat, 2 vols (London: Trustees of the British Museum, 1968), I (pp. 16-17).
Alexandre Micha, Merlin, Roman du XIIIe siècle (Paris: Librairie Droz, 1980), pp. xvi, xxxii-xxxiii, 1-291 [for an edition of the text].
Robert de Boron, Joseph d'Arimathie, ed. by Richard O'Gorman (Toronto: Institute of Medieval Studies, 1995), pp. 8, 33-337 [for an edition of the text], 412, n. 65.
W. A. Nitze, 'Messire Robert de Boron, enquete et mise au point' in Fils sans père: Etudes sur le 'Merlin' de Robert de Boron, ed. by Denis Hue, Medievalia, 35 (Orleans: Paradigme, 2000), pp. 115-36 (pp. 116, 127-28).
Larry S. Crist, 'Les Livres de Merlin' in Fils sans père: Etudes sur le 'Merlin' de Robert de Boron, ed. by Denis Hue, Medievalia, 35 (Orleans: Paradigme, 2000), pp. 77-87 [on the text].
Alison Stones, 'Mise en Page in the French Lancelot-Grail: The first 150 years of the Illustrative Tradition' in A Companion to the Lancelot-Grail Cycle, ed. by Carol Dover, Arthurian Studies, 54 (Woodbridge: D. S. Brewer, 2003), pp. 125-44 (pp. 131,137).
Roger Middleton, 'Manuscripts of the Lancelot-Grail Cycle in England and Wales: Some Books and their Owners' in A Companion to the Lancelot-Grail Cycle, ed. by Carol Dover (Woodbridge: D. S. Brewer, 2003), pp. 219-35, (p. 233).
Linda Gowans, ' What did Robert de Boron really write ?' in Arthurian Studies in Honour of P. J. C. Field (Woodbridge: D. S. Brewer, 2004), pp. 15-28 (pp. 17-18).
Fanny Bogdanow and Richard Trachsler, 'Rewriting Prose Romance: The Post-Vulgate Roman de Graal and Related Texts' in The Arthur of the French, ed. by Glyn S. Burgess and Karen Pratt , Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages, 4 vols (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2006), IV, pp. 342-92 (pp. 342-43, 347, 382).
La légende du roi Arthur, ed. by Thierry Delcourt (Paris: Bibiothèque nationale de France, 2009), pp. 25 (plate), 48.
Irene Fabry-Tehranchi, Texte et images des manuscrits de Merlin et de la Suite Vulgate (XIIIe-XVe siècle) (Turnhout: Brepols, 2014), pp. 4, 25, 29, 38, 44, 45, 53, 54, 60, 91, 99.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)