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Lansdowne MS 757
- Record Id:
- 040-002077101
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002077101
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000001257.0x00032e
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100165171183.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Lansdowne MS 757
- Title:
- The Lancelot-Grail Cycle
- Scope & Content:
-
Contents:
Part of the prose Lancelot-Grail Cycle, containing the the early portion of the Lancelot-propre or Lancelot du Lac, which relates the courtly exploits of Lancelot. It corresponds to most of the first section of Additional MS 10293: ff. 1-129 (vol. III, pp. 122-430 of Sommer's edition, Vulgate Version (1910)), imperfect at the beginning and lacking the folio before f. 165. The text begins with the arrival of Lancelot at Camelot with the Lady of the Lake, beginning '...chaceor fort et isnel qui tost lo port. La dame abate sa guimple devant sa bouche et salue lo roi' and ends with his departure from King Arthur's court in the company of Galehaut (Galehault), ending 'Et li rois et sa compaignie sen repairent vers bretaine mais si endroit se taist li contes de roi et de la raine et de lor compaignie que plus nene parole ancois retorne a galeot et a son compaignon qui sen revont en lor pais a granz iornes tant com il poent chevaucher'.
The version of the text in this manuscript is close to that of Paris, BnF, f. fr. 751.
Decoration:
Small initials in red, some with pen-flourishing in blue or in blue with pen-flourishing in red.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Lansdowne Collection
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002077101", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Lansdowne MS 757: The Lancelot-Grail Cycle" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002060013
040-002077101 - Is part of:
- Lansdowne MS 1-1245 : Lansdowne Manuscripts
Lansdowne MS 757 : The Lancelot-Grail Cycle - Hierarchy:
- 032-002060013[0591]/040-002077101
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Lansdowne MS 1-1245
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
-
1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_100165171183.0x000001 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- French
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1250
- End Date:
- 1299
- Date Range:
- 2nd half of the 13th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
-
Letter of introduction required to use this manuscript.
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Material: Parchment.
Dimensions: 225 x 160 mm (written space: 160 x 125 mm).
Foliation: ff. 166 (+ 4 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning and 3 at the end).
Script: Gothic.
Layout: Written in two columns of 35 to 42 lines; written above and below the top line.
Binding: Post-1600. Black leather with the arms of Lansdowne in gold in the centre of covers; marbled endpapers.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: Northern France (possibly Champagne).
Linguistic features, such as the use of use of the pronoun 'lo', indicate an origin in eastern France (see Gaunt and others, Medieval Francophone Literary Culture Outside France).
Provenance:
Folios at the beginning (ff. 1-18v) and end (ff. 158-164) and some interpolated leaves (ff. 25, 59, 89-90, 95-96, 151) are in a 14th-century script, with English dialect markers such as 'ceo' and 'pur', suggesting that these leaves may have been added in England.
William Petty (formerly Fitzmaurice) (b. 1737, d. 1805), 2nd earl of Shelbourne and 1st marquess of Lansdowne, prime minister; purchased by the British Museum together with 1244 other Lansdowne manuscripts in 1807.
- Information About Copies:
-
Full digital coverage available for this manuscript: see Digitised Manuscripts at http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts.
Select digital coverage available for this manuscript, see Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/welcome.htm.
- Publications:
-
[Henry Ellis and Francis Douce], A Catalogue of the Lansdowne Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1819), no. 757.
H. Oskar Sommer, Le Roman de Merlin or the Early History of King Arthur (London: Privately printed, 1894), facing p. xxiv.
H.L.D. Ward, Catalogue of Romances in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum 3 vols (London: Clowes and Sons, 1883-1910), I, pp. 347-48.
Micha, Alexandre, 'Les manuscrits du Lancelot en prose (deuxième article)', Romania, 84 (1963), 28-60 (p. 52).
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. 234).
Roger Middleton, 'The Manuscripts', in The Arthur of the French, ed. by Glyn S. Burgess and Karen Pratt , Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages, 4 (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2006), pp. 8-92 (pp. 46, 55).
Alison Stones and others, The Lancelot-Graal Project (rev. 2010), http://www.lancelot-project.pitt.edu/lancelot-project.html [accessed 15 April, 2015].
Simon Gaunt and others, Medieval Francophone Literary Culture Outside France, http://www.medievalfrancophone.ac.uk/ (see http://www.medievalfrancophone.ac.uk/browse/mss/178/manuscript.html) [accessed 16 July 2015].
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)