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Royal MS 19 C I
- Record Id:
- 040-002107611
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-002105724
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000338.0x000365
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100057740622.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Royal MS 19 C I
- Title:
- Matfre Ermengaud, Breviari d'Amor
- Scope & Content:
-
Contents:
Matfre Ermengaud (or Matfres Ermengau, Eymengau) de Beziers:
ff. 1r: Chanson, incipit, 'Dregz de natura comanda don amors pren naysshe men';
ff. 2r-250v: Breviari d'Amor, preceded by a table of rubrics. This encyclopaedic work, explaining how the world is an emanation of love, consists of 34,550 lines in verse in the Occitan dialect composed between 1288 and 1292;
ff. 251r-v: A letter from Matfre Ermengaud to his sister Suau;
ff. 252r-253r: 'Salve regina en romans';
f. 253v-255v: A legend of the Tree of the Cross entitled 'Del peccat dadam'.
Decoration:
3 full-page miniatures in colours and gold (ff. 11v, 30v, 125v). 21 two-column miniatures in colours and gold (ff. 7r, 33r, 34v, 37r, 37v, 42v, 50r, 51r, 53v, 54v, 58v, 67v, 74r, 96r, 168r, 173r, 177v, 202r, 204r, 204v, 245v). Numerous smaller miniatures in colours and gold. Puzzle initials in blue and red, with pen-flourishing in red and purple. Smaller initials in blue or red with pen-flourishing in red or purple. Paraphs in blue or red. First letter of each line highlighted in yellow. Foliation in Roman numerals in red and blue in the upper margin of each recto. Rubrics in red. Decorated catchwords. Instructions to the rubricator in the margins (e.g., ff. 62v, 154r).
The subjects of the images are:
f. 7r: Matfre holding a large book from which he is instructing four crowned figures holding books or scrolls;
f. 8r: Matfre praying to Christ, with the Holy Dove (above right);
f. 11v: The Tree of Love;
f. 15r: The Almighty seated (right) and St Michael with a sword warns off unbelievers;
f. 16r: The Trinity as the three Persons, exactly alike, seated, within a circle held by two angels: beneath, the wicked (two figures wrestling);
f. 26v: God creating the animals, with a robed figure (?Ermengaud) kneeling before him;
f. 29v: An angel giving good consel, and a devil evil counsel to a man; an angel conveying the Lord's prayer from a kneeling figure to God;
f. 30r: An angel comforting a weeping figure; an angel feeding a man; an angel as God's messenger (the Annunciation); angels carrying a soul to Heaven;
f. 30v: The hierarchy of angels adoring the Trinity;
f. 33r: The fall of the wicked angels into a hell mouth with the hand of God holding a rod over them; the prince of the devils sending out two devils; the temptation of lechery;
f. 33v: The temptations of avarice, robbery and anger; a devil raising a storm at sea;
f. 34v: A diagram of the universe with two angels turning the axes;
ff. 35r-37r: Miniatures of the twelve signs of the Zodiac; a circular Zodiac diagram;
f. 37v: A diagram of the sun's course;
f. 39r: Saturn, with a sickle;
f. 39v: Jupiter, with ?coins on a table; Mars, as a knight;
f. 40v: The sun, moon, and earth, illustrating an eclipse of the sun;
f. 41r: The sun, crowned, with a horn, riding four horses;
f. 41v: Venus, with mirror, in the water; Mercury with winged feet, a flail, and a cock crowing on the upper right;
f. 42v: A diagram of the phases of moon;
f. 43r: A diagram of an eclipse of the moon;
f. 43v: The moon as a female figure holding a crescent;
f. 48r: The earth, showing land and water;
f. 48v: A diagram of the dimensions of the earth;
f. 49v: A diagram of the fifteen precious stones;
f. 50r: A diagram of spheres of the elements and planets with four angels holding them;
f. 51r: A diagram of the winds;
f. 53r: A diagram of daylight hours;
f. 53v: A circular diagram of the planets governing the days of the week;
f. 54v: The seasons;
ff; 55r-57r: The occupations of the months, as described in the text: January: a person feasting, between two musicians; February: warming hands at the fire; March: pruning; April: gathering flowers; May: hawking; June: mowing; July: reaping; August: threshing; September: grape harvesting; October: ploughing and sowing; November: pig feeding; December: pig killing;
f. 58v: The six ages of the world, with an angel in the centre;
f. 65v: The creation of Eve out of Adam;
f. 66v: The Temptation of Eve; Eve gives Adam the apple;
f. 67r: God speaking to Adam and Eve;
f. 67v: The Expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden;
f. 74r: God and Moses (with horns) holding the tablets of the Law: Israelites worshipping the golden calf (right);
ff. 80r-v: Seven works of mercy and the soul of a merciful man taken to heaven (f. 80v below);
f. 89r: The Virgin and Child, with two angels holding censers;
f. 89v: God cursing the serpent: the Virgin hitting the serpent's head with a rod; Moses before the burning bush;
f. 90v: Aaron's rod in flower;
f. 91r: The gate of the sanctuary or 'porta virginal' (Ezekial 44:2); Isaiah with a scroll;
f. 91v: Isaiah with two scrolls;
ff. 93v-95v: Biblical prophesies, each with a series of three pictures: a saint (St Peter, St Paul, St Gregory, St Jerome, St Bernard, St John, St Augustine, St Ambrose, and two not named) expounding, a confessor interpreting, and a Jew, blinded by a devil, rejecting the prophesy;
f. 96r: God blessing Abraham's posterity (arranged as a genealogical tree, but including the apostles);
f. 101v: Death of the Virgin; Coronation of the Virgin;
f. 119v: Absolution of penitents;
f. 120v: Christ scourged and mocked; Christ on the Cross, with two soldiers holding a spear and a sponge;
f. 121v: St Michael weighing souls; the devil at a dying man's bedside;
ff. 122r-123r: The ten pains of hell, each with souls in a hell-mouth;
f. 125v: The Last Judgement;
f. 144r: Christ teaching the disciples;
f. 156v: The angel speaking to Zacharias;
f. 157r: The Annunciation;
f. 157v: The Visitation;
f. 160v: The Nativity; the shepherds; the Circumcision;
f. 161r: The Magi riding; the Adoration of the Magi;
f. 161v: The Presentation in the Temple;
f. 162r: The Flight into Egypt; the Massacre of the Innocents;
f. 162v: Christ disputing in the Temple; Christ taken home by Mary and Joseph;
f. 163r: St John baptizing;
f. 163v: Behold the Lamb of God; the Baptism of Christ;
f. 164r: The first Temptation of Christ; the calling of the fishermen: Saints Simon and Andrew;
f. 164v: The Marriage at Cana; Christ curing a fever;
ff. 165r-165v: Christ's miracles: healing and raising the dead;
f. 166r: The healed man carrying away his bed; Christ roused to still the storm;
f. 166v: Exorcising the demon and the Gadarene swine;
f. 167r: Christ sending out the Disciples;
f. 167v: The beheading of John the Baptist and Salome with his head;
f. 168r: Feeding of the five thousand; Christ gives St Peter the keys;
f. 168v: The Transfiguration;
f. 169r: Healing the demoniac;
f. 169v: Raising of Lazarus;
f. 170r: Entry into Jerusalem; Christ throwing out the money-lenders from the Temple;
f. 171v: Christ washing the disciples' feet; Judas and the priests;
f. 172r: The Last Supper;
f. 172v: The Agony in the garden;
f. 173r: The Betrayal;
f. 174r: Christ mocked; Penitence of St Peter; Christ before Pilate;
f. 174v: Return and suicide of Judas;
f. 175r: Christ before Herod;
f. 175v: Pilate washing his hands;
f. 176r: Christ scourged; Christ mocked; Christ led to Calvary;
f. 176v: Christ given vinegar; the Crucifixion; Christ's garments divided among the soldiers;
f. 177r: Death of Christ;
f. 177v: Christ's side pierced and the thieves' legs broken;
f. 178r: The Descent from the Cross; the Entombment;
f. 185v-186r: The four divisions of Hell; the Resurrection of Christ;
f. 186v: The Holy Women at the Tomb; Christ appearing to Mary Magdalene;
f. 187r: The supper at Emmaus;
f. 187v: Christ eating with the disciples;
f. 188r: Doubting Thomas;
f. 188v: The miraculous catch of fishes;
f. 189r: The Ascension;
f. 190r: Coming of the Holy Ghost;
f. 195r: The crucifixion of S. Andrew (on a Latin cross placed horizontally), with a bishop and two others kneeling below;
f. 199r: St John the Evangelist writing: the Holy Ghost above;
f. 202r: The creation of male and female;
ff. 203v-204v: The temptation of lovers by carnal delights, by fine clothes; by vanity, by worldly pursuits (hawking and hunting), by pomp and banquets, by tournaments and prowess (knights saluting ladies and knights fighting), by dances and by worship of ladies; the devil carrying off the dying lover's soul;
f. 207r: Matfre reproving evil-speakers;
ff. 211r, 213r, 217v, 222r, 227v: 5 miniatures of Matfre discoursing with lovers and troubadours;
f. 245v: Leaves and flowers of the Tree of Love, the seven virtues (crowned, with sceptres) and the seven vices (below).
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Royal Collection
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002105724
040-002107611 - Is part of:
- Royal MS 1 A I-20 E X : Royal Manuscripts
Royal MS 19 C I : Matfre Ermengaud, Breviari d'Amor - Hierarchy:
- 032-002105724[1758]/040-002107611
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Royal MS 1 A I-20 E X
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
-
A parchment codex, 256 folios
- Digitised Content:
- https://iiif.bl.uk/uv/#?manifest=https://bl.digirati.io/iiif/ark:/81055/vdc_100057740622.0x000001
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- French, Old
Occitan, Old - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1300
- End Date:
- 1340
- Date Range:
- Early 14th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: parchment.
Dimensions: 350 x 255mm (text space: 235 x 160mm).
Foliation: ff. i + 256 (+ 2 unfoliated modern parchment flyleaves and 1 unfoliated paper flyleaf at the beginning and at the end; f. i is a paste-down and f. 256 is a medieval parchment flyleaf).
Script: Gothic.
Layout: 2 columns of 40 lines.
Binding: Post-1600. BM/BL in-house.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: France, S. (Toulouse?).
Provenance:
Added title 'lo breuiari damors', 14th century (f. 255v).
Added drawing of a hooded head, 15th century? (f. 208r).
Henry VIII (b. 1491, d. 1547), king of England and Ireland: the monogram 'HR' [for Henricus Rex] (f. 1r).?Shelfmark of a very large number in black ink (Carley's 'Old Large Number') '36' (f. 1r).
The Old Royal Library (the English Royal Library): Westminster inventory number 'no. 132' (f. 1r), included in the inventory of books in the Upper Library at Westminster of 1542; and in the catalogue of 1666, Royal Appendix 71, f. 14r. Presented to the British Museum by George II in 1757 as part of the Old Royal Library.
- 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:
-
Carl Bartsch, Denkmäler der provenzalischer Litteratur, Bibliothek des Litterarischen Vereins in Stuttgart, 39 (Stuttgart, 1856), p. 79. f. 1.
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, pp. 131-32.
Clovis Brunel, Bibliographie des manuscrits littéraires en ancien provençal (Paris: Librairie E. Droz, 1935), no. 22.
Fritz Saxl and Hans Meier, Catalogue of Astrological and Mythological Illuminated Manuscripts of the Latin Middle Ages, 4 vols (London: The Warburg Institute, 1953), III: Manuscripts in English Libraries, pp. 218-19.
Katja Laske-Fix, Der Bildzyklus des Breviari d’amor (Munich: Verlag Schnell & Steiner, 1973), pp. 128-29 [as manuscript L].
John E. Murdoch, Album of Science: Antiquity and the Middle Ages, ed. by I. B. Cohen (New York: Scribner's Sons, 1984), nos 253, 276.
Geneviève Brunel, 'Un fragment du Breviari d'Amor au Palais du Roure (Avignon)', Romania. Revue trimestrielle consacrée à l'étude des langues et des littératures romanes,104 (1984), 177-97 (p. 180).
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).
A. Rudoloff Stanton, 'La Genealogie Comence: Kinship and Difference in the Queen Mary Psalter', Studies in Iconography, 17 (1996), 177-214 (fig. 18).
J. P. Carley, 'Marks in Books and the Libraries of Henry VIII', Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, 91 (1997), 583-606 (pp. 603, 605, pl. 4).
Le Breviari d'amor de Matfre Ermengaud, ed. by Peter T. Ricketts, with the collaboration of Cyril P. Hershon III (lines 8880T-16783), Association Internationale d'Etudes Occitanes, 5 (London: AIEO, Royal Holloway, University of London, 1998).
Cyril P. Hershon and Peter T. Ricketts, 'Les textes hébraïques du Brevari d'amor de Matfre Ermengaud', Revue des langues romanes, 103 (1999), 55-97 (p. 94).
The Libraries of King Henry VIII, ed. by J. P. Carley, Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues, 7 (London: The British Library, 2000), H2.625, pl. 5a.
Sophie Page, Astrology in Medieval Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2002), p. 36, pl. 26; p. 43, pl. 33.
Pamela Porter, Courtly Love in Medieval Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2003), p. 24.
Sophie Page, Magic in Medieval Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2004), pp. 36-37, pls. 36-37.
Federico Botana, 'Virtuous and Sinful Uses of Temporal Wealth in the Breviari D'Amor of Matfre Ermengaud (MS ROYAL 19.C.I)', Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institues, 67 (2004), 49-80.
Federico Botana, 'Like the Members of a Body: Assisting the Poor in Matfre Ermengaud's Breviari d'Amor', in Armut und Armenfürsorge in der italienischen Stadtkultur zwischen 13. und 16. Jahrhundert: Bilder, Texte und soziale Praktiken, ed. by Philine Helas and Gerhard Wolf (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2006), pp. 287-302 (pp. 287-92, 297-301, pl. XIII, fig. 104-06, 108-14).
Carlos Miranda Garcia-Tejedor, 'Los manuscritos con pincturas del Breviari d'Amor de Matfre Ermengaud de Béziers: Un estado de la cuestión', in La miniatura medieval en la Penísula Ibérica, ed. by Joaquín Yarza (Murcia: Nausícaä, 2007), pp. 313-73 (p. 326).
Sarah Kay, 'How Long is a Quotation? Quotations from the Troubadours in the Text and Manuscripts of the Breviari d'amor', Romania, 127 (2009), 140-68 (MS L, Plate 1).
Galileo: Images of the Universe from Antiquity to the Telescope, ed. by Paolo Galluzzi, Florence, Palazzo Strozzi 13 March-30 August 2009 (Florence: Giunti, 2009), no. V.1.3. [exhibition catalogue].
Peter T. Ricketts, Connaissance de la littérature occitane: Matfre Ermengaud (1246-1322) et le Breviari d'amor (Perpignan, Presses Universitaires de Perpignan, 2012), p. 76.
Maureen Boulton, Sacred Fictions of Medieval France (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2015), p. 312.
- Exhibitions:
- Spellbound: Magic, Ritual & Witchcraft, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 31 August 2018 - 6 January 2019
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)