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Royal MS 19 B XVI
- Record Id:
- 040-002107608
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-002105724
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000338.0x000362
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100165171657.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Royal MS 19 B XVI
- Title:
- Le Miroir des Dames (an anonymous French translation of Durand de Champagne's Speculum Dominarum)
- Scope & Content:
-
This manuscript contains an early 15th-century copy of Le Miroir des Dames, an anonymous French translation of the Speculum dominarum, a treatise on queenship written for Jeanne de Navarre (b. 1273, d. 1305), Queen of France and wife of Philip IV (r. 1285-1314), by her confessor, Durand de Champagne.
Only a single copy of the Latin Speculum dominarum survives (now Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France, lat. 6784), while its French translation is extant in at least 12 known manuscripts. These include London, British Library, Add MS 29986; Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 324; Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France, ms fr. 610; and Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana Reg. Lat. 403 (for a full list of the surviving manuscripts, see Mews, 'The Speculum dominarum (Miroir des dames) (2011), p. 22).
Contents:
f. 2r-v: The translator's preface to the work, beginning, 'Selon ce que dit vn maistre qui est nomez Vegecius'.
ff. 2v-163r: Le Miroir des Dames, an anonymous French translation of Durand de Champagne's Speculum Dominarum, arranged in three parts (ff. 2v-98v, 98v-123r, 123r-163r, the third part lacking a rubric), beginning, 'Salemon qui fu de sapience par le don de dieu clerement enluminez', and ending, 'a ceste glorieuse maison de pardurable beneurte nous vveille conduire et mener dieu tous puissant qui en trinite parfaite vit et regne pardurablement. amen amen. alleluia. alleluia. alleluia'.
ff. 163r-164v: A table of contents, featuring a colophon at the beginning ('Cy fenist le mireour des dames. plaise a dieu que il leur pouffite aus ames. amen') and at the end ('Ce liure est accompli et achiue le vendredi ixe. jour de juillet lan mil iiiic. xxviii. deo gracias. Roeo lectori oret deus (sic) corde fideli Vt det scriptori pro pena gaudia celi. amen').
f. 1r is blank.
Decoration:
1 large miniature in colours and gold, showing a cleric, most likely the author Durand de Champagne, kneeling and presenting the book to Jeanne de Navarre, who appears holding a mirror, with a foliate initial 'S'(elon) in colours and gold and a full border, at the beginning of the translator's preface to the work (f. 2r).
1 added full-page miniature in colours and gold of the royal arms of Henry VII (r. 1495-1509), King of England (f. 1v).
1 puzzle initial in blue and red with black and red pen-flourishing, at the beginning of Book 2 (f. 98v).
Initials in red with black pen-flourishing, or in blue with red pen-flourishing.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Medieval and Renaissance Women
Royal Collection - Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002105724
040-002107608 - Is part of:
- Royal MS 1 A I-20 E X : Royal Manuscripts
Royal MS 19 B XVI : Le Miroir des Dames (an anonymous French translation of Durand de Champagne's Speculum Dominarum) - Hierarchy:
- 032-002105724[1755]/040-002107608
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Royal MS 1 A I-20 E X
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
-
1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- https://iiif.bl.uk/uv/#?manifest=https://bl.digirati.io/iiif/ark:/81055/vdc_100165171657.0x000001
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- French
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1428
- End Date:
- 1428
- Date Range:
- 1428
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Material: Parchment.
Dimensions: 305 x 225 mm (written space: 210 x 150 mm), written in two columns.
Foliation: ff. 164 (+ 3 unfoliated modern paper flyleaves and 1 parchment flyleaf at the beginning + 2 unfoliated parchment flyleaves and 3 modern paper flyleaves at the end).
Collation: Gatherings of 8: i-xx8 (ff. 2-161), xxi3 (ff. 162-164).
Catchwords and bifolium signatures (mostly trimmed).
Script: Gothic cursive.
Binding: British Museum in-house. Brown half-leather binding, with the Royal arms gold-stamped on the upper and lower covers. Rebound 1968.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin:
Northern France.
Provenance:
The manuscript was written in 1428: colophons inscribed, 'Cy fenist le mireour des dames. plaise a dieu que il leur pouffite aus ames. amen' (f. 163r), and, 'Ce livre est accompli et achive / le vendredi ixe jour de juil/let lan mil iiiic. xxviii. / deo gracias' (f. 164v).
Henry VII (r. 1485-1509), King of England and Lord of Ireland: his added Royal arms, supported by a red dragon and white greyhound, with a hawthorn bush surmounted by a golden crown (f. 1v).
The Old Royal Library (the English Royal Library): included in the catalogue of 1666, Royal Appendix MS 71, f. 11r.
Presented to the British Museum by George II in 1757 as part of the Old Royal Library.
- Information About Copies:
-
Select digital coverage available for this manuscript; see the Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts, https://bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts.
- Publications:
-
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. 330.
Andrew G. Watson, Catalogue of Dated and Datable Manuscripts c. 700-1600 in The Department of Manuscripts: The British Library, 2 vols (London: British Library, 1979), I, no. 911.
Kathleen Scott, ‘Caveat Lector: Ownership and Standardization in the Illustration of Fifteenth-Century English Manuscripts’, in English Manuscript Studies, 1, ed. by Peter Beal and Jeremy Griffiths (London: British Library, 1989), 19-63 (p. 55 n. 16).
Janet Backhouse, 'Illuminated Manuscripts Associated with Henry VII and Members of his Immediate Family', in The Reign of Henry VII: Proceedings of the 1993 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. by Benjamin Thompson (Stamford: Paul Watkins, 1995), pp. 175-87 (p. 180, pl. 51).
Virginia K. Henderson, 'Retrieving the 'Crown in the Hawthorn Bush': The Origins of the Badges of Henry VII', in Traditions and Transformations in Late Medieval England, ed. by Douglas Biggs, Sharon D. Michalove and A. Compton Reeves (Leiden: Brill, 2002), pp. 237-59 (pp. 253-54, 258 n. 69, fig. 9).
Kathleen L. Scott, Tradition and Innovation in Later Medieval English Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2007), pp. 33-35, 166, n. 265.
Kathleen L. Scott, 'Manuscripts for Henry VII, his Household and Family', in The Cambridge Illuminations: The Conference Papers, ed. by Stella Panayotova (London: Harvey Miller, 2007), pp. 279-86 (p. 280, n. 10).
Scot McKendrick, John Lowdem, and Kathleen Doyle, Royal Manuscripts: The Genius of Illumination (London: British Library, 2011), no. 68 [exhibition catalogue].
Constant J. Mews, 'The Speculum dominarum (Miroir des dames) and Transformations of the Literature of Instruction for Women in the Early Fourteenth Century', in Virtue Ethics for Women 1250-1500, ed. by Karen Green and Constant J. Mews (Dordrecht: Springer, 2011), pp. 13-30 (p. 22).
Joanna Fronska, 'The Royal Image and Diplomacy: Henry VII’s Book of Astrology (British Library, Arundel 66)', Electronic British Library Journal (2014), 7, p. 9.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)