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Royal MS 13 B III

Record Id:

040-002106838

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

032-002105724

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000277.0x0003e2

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Royal MS 13 B III

Title:

Guillaume de Nangis, Gesta sancti Ludouici et regis Philippi

Scope & Content:

Contents:

ff. 2r-121r: Latin chronicles concerning the lives of St Louis (ff. 2r-81v) and Philip the Fair (ff. 82r-121r) dedicated to Philip the Bold, with rubric 'Gesta sancta ludovica et Regis philippi eius primogeniti' (f. 2r).

The text was copied from the collection of Latin chronicles of France assembled in the middle of the thirteenth century at the abbey of Saint-Denis, now Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS lat. 5925.

f. 121v: Summons addressed by Philip the Fair to the abbot of Mont-Saint-Éloi, near Arras, Servatius/Servais of Guez (fl. 1291 – c. 1313), inviting him to Saint-Denis for the ceremony of the elevation of the relics of Saint Louis. The letter is incorrectly dated 7 May 1308; the original summons, of which it is a copy, was sent out in 1298 (see Delisle, 'Mémoires sur les ouvrages de Guillaume de Nangis' (1873), p. 295).

Decoration:

1 large miniature in colours and gold of the Dauphin Louis, with a full border of vine leaves and a foliate initial in colours and gold, at the beginning of the text (f. 2r).

1 foliate initial in colours and gold with a partial border of vine leaves (f. 82r). Initials in gold with black and red pen-flourishing, or in blue with red and black pen-flourishing. Line-fillers in gold and blue.

The illumination has been attributed to the Boethius Master.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Royal Collection

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002105724
040-002106838

Is part of:

Royal MS 1 A I-20 E X : Royal Manuscripts

Royal MS 13 B III : Guillaume de Nangis, Gesta sancti Ludouici et regis Philippi

Hierarchy:

032-002105724[1058]/040-002106838

Container:

View / search within Archive / Collection: Royal MS 1 A I-20 E X

Record Type (Level):

File

Extent:

Parchment codex

Digitised Content:

Languages:

Latin

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1400

End Date:

1415

Date Range:

1st quarter of the 15th century

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

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Physical Characteristics:

Materials: parchment.

Dimensions: 270 x 185 mm (text space: 165 x 105 mm), in one column.

Foliation: ff. 121 (+ 4 unfoliated modern paper flyleaves at the beginning and at the end, and 1 unfoliated medieval parchment flyleaf at the beginning and 2 at the end; f. 1 is a medieval parchment flyleaf).

Script: Gothic.

Binding: BM/BL in-house. 19th century; gilt edges.

Custodial History:

Origin: France, Central (Paris).

Provenance:

Louis of Guyenne (b. 1397, d. 1415), the Dauphin of France, son of Charles VI of France and Isabeau of Bavaria, probably made for him: his portrait with the arms of the Dauphin of France, and the heraldic charges of France and Bavaria (f. 2).

Shelfmark '6' (f. i).

The Old Royal Library (the English Royal Library): Westminster inventory number 'no. 1114' (f. 2), acquired by the Upper Library at Westminster after the inventory of 1542, Royal Appendix 71, f. 19v; and in the 1698 catalogue of the library of St James’s Palace (see [Edward Bernard], Catalogi librorum manuscriptorum Angliae et Hiberniae (Oxford: Sheldonian, '1697', but 1698?), no. 8342).

Added 17th-century note concerning the letter of Philip the Fair copied at the end of the manuscript, inscribed, 'pythoeana editio in prologo qui [added: ante vitam philippi habetur]/ in hoc exemplari authorem huius / operis facit Guillelmum de Nangis / monachu[m] ecc[les]iae s[anc]ti Dionysij in Francia / In finis autem l[itte]ræ Philippi regis super / translatione Ludovici quæ in hoc / exemplari habetur desunt in impresso / codici' (f. 1). The statement refers to Pierre Pithou’s Historiæ Francorum (1596), in which he publishes the Lives of Louis IX (pp. 400-70) and Philip III (pp. 470-504) and attributes both to Guillaume de Nangis, but does not include the letter found at the end of this manuscript.

Presented to the British Museum by George II in 1757 as part of the Old Royal Library.

Publications:

Pierre Pithou, Historiæ Francorum ab anno Christi DCCCC. ad ann. M. CC. LXXXV. Scriptores veteres XI (Frankfurt: Andreas Wechel, 1596) [on the text].

Léopold Delisle, 'Mémoires sur les ouvrages de Guillaume de Nangis', Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 27 (1873), 287-372 (p. 295).

Léopold Delisle, Notes sur quelques manuscrits du Musée Britannique [Extrait des Mémoires de la Société de l’histoire de Paris et de l’Ile de France] (Paris, 1878), pp. 36-38.

[George Warner], Reproductions from Illuminated Manuscripts, Series I, (London: British Museum, 1907), pl. 28.

George F. Warner and Julius P. Gilson, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Old Royal and King’s Collections, 4 vols (London: British Museum, 1921), II, p. 93.

The Libraries of King Henry VIII, ed. by J. P. Carley, Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues, 7 (London: The British Library, 2000), H2.1114.

Paris 1400: Les arts sous Charles VI (Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux, 2004), no. 68 [exhibition catalogue].

Inès Villela-Petit, ‘The Artists: The Giac Master and the Boethius Master, illuminators of the war’, transl. by Keira Borrill, in The Online Froissart, ed. by Peter Ainsworth and Godfried Croenen, v. 1.5 (Sheffield: HRIOnline, 2013), http://www.hrionline.ac.uk/onlinefroissart/apparatus.jsp?type=intros&intro=f.intros.IVP-Artists, [first published in 2010, accessed 09.06.2014].

Scot McKendrick, John Lowden, and Kathleen Doyle, Royal Manuscripts: The Genius of Illumination (London: British Library, 2011), no. 67 [exhibition catalogue].

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Names:

Nangis, Guillaume, chronicler and monk of Saint-Denis, d 1304

Related Material:

From the printed Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Old Royal and King's Collections (1921), II, p. 93:

'GESTA sancti Ludouici et regis Philippi eius primogeniti' [i. e. Louis IX and Philip III of France, 1226-1285], in Latin, by Guillaume de Nangis. Printed (from Bibl. Nat. MS. lat. 5925, the only other known copy of the Latin form of the work) by Pithou, Historiae Francorum . . . scriptores veteres, 1596, and Bouquet, Recueil des Historiens des Gaules el de la France, 1840, xx, p. 309. The arrangement is :-(a) Life of S. Louis, beg. 'Nobilissimo atque strenuissimo rege Francie Ludouico'. The final chapter on his miracles (omitted in the French version) is included. f. 1;-(b) Dedicatory lines, offering the work to Philip III, beg. 'M semel et C bis septem decies adhibebis'. Printed by L. Delisle, Notes sur quelques manuscrits du Musie Britannique, 1878, p. 37, who points out that they prove that the life of S. Louis was originally a separate work, written in the reign of Philip III and dedicated to him. f. 81 b;-(c) The author's dedication of the combined lives to Philip IV, beg. 'Regum et principum gesta' (Bouquet, op. cit., p. 310), which in the Paris MS. stands before the life of S. Louis. f. 82;-(d) 'Incipiunt gesta Philippi regis Francie filii memorie (sic) sancti Ludouici regis', beg. 'Quoniam quidem dignis preconiorum titulis'. f. 82 b;-(e) Letter of Philip IV to the abbot of Mont-St.-Eloy (Pas-de-Calais), inviting him to be present at the translation of the remains of S. Louis; dated at Paris, 7 May, 1308. Beg. 'Philippus Dei gracia, &c. Vocatos de tenebris huius uitae'. This letter is not in the Paris MS., but is printed from the present text by L. Delisle, 'Mémoire sur les ouvrages de G. de Nangis', in Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions, xxvii, pt. 2, 1873, p. 9, where he takes the date 1308 to be a mistake for 1298. f. 121 b.

Vellum; ff. 121. 10³/₄ in. x 7¹/₄ in. Early XV cent. Gatherings of 8 leaves, with catchwords (the life of S. Louis ends on the last leaf of a gathering, f. 81, but no catchword is given, which suggests that the life of Philip was at first written separately,). Sec. fol. 'incredibilis'. On f. 1 is a half-page miniature, with full ivy-pattern border, representing the Dauphin Louis (1396-1415, son of Charles VI and Isabella of Bavaria) receiving instruction from a personage (with sceptre, crown, and nimbus) who, notwithstanding the female character of the face, which suggests the Virgin, is probably intended for S. Louis. Behind this figure are the heraldic charges of France, and behind the Dauphin those of France and Bavaria, with the Dauphin's device. See pl. 78, and Brit. Mus. Reprod. from Illum. MSS., ser. i, 1907, pl. xxviii. The MS. may very probably have been executed for this prince. Illuminated initial and partial border on f. 82; small illuminated initials to chapters. Old Royal pressmark 'no. 1114'; cat. of 1666, f. 19b; CMA. 8342.'