Royal MS 20 B XXI

POEMS translated or composed by Jean le Fèyre of Ressons-sur-Matz, viz.:-

1. Les Lamentations de Matheolus, a satirical poem on women and the miseries of marriage: French version of the Latin poem by Mahieu, or Matheolus, of Boulogne. Both original and translation, the Latin from the unique MS. at Utrecht, and the French from a Paris MS. (as well as the poem 'Le Livre de Leesce', see below, art. 2), were published for the École des Hautes Études (Fasc. 95, 96, 1892, 1905), by A. G. van Hamel, who ascribes the date of the poem to A.D. 1295-1301, and the translation to A. D. 1371 or 1372 (op. cit. pp. cxixcxxvi, clxxxi, clxxxii). Usually divided into four books, but the present MS. has no divisions or titles. Another copy is in Add. MS. 30985. The translator's preface consists of 81 lines. f. 3. Preface begins:-

'Tristis est anima mea. Ihesucrist qui tant ame a.'

Text begins:-

'Saten [for Va-t'en] petit liure, vaten. En la cite plus ny a ten.'

Ends:-

'Et me doint lieu auec mamie En la celeste compaignie.'

2. Le Livre de Leesce (also called Les Rebours de Matheolus or Le Resolu en Mariage, see Hamel, op. cit. p. xxxv): original poem by Jean le Févre in about 41OO lines (Hamel's ed. has 3991, but this excludes some quotations from the poem in art. 1), written probably at the end of 1373, as a sort of palinode to art. 1. f. 70.

Begins:-

'Mes dames ie requier mercy A vous me vueil excuser cy.'

Ends:-

'Plus nen diray a ceste foiz. A dieu vous commant. ie men voys.'

Vellum; ff. 100. 111/4 in. x 81/4 in. XV cent. Probably written in France. Gatherings (beg. f. 3) of 8 leaves (ix⁴, end of art. 1). Double columns. Sec. fol. 'las Mahieu'. Initials flourished in blue and red or red and black (two with gold). On f. 2 b is a note 'Thys boke ys myn. George Boleyn. 1526', probably by Anne Boleyn's brother, afterwards Viscount Rochford (executed 1536). The Wyatts were closely associated with the Boleyns, and the name yat occurs with scribbling (French and Italian) on ff. 99 b, 100. Old Royal press-mark 'no. 455' (Westm. invent. of 1542, Add. MS. 25469, f. 13); cat. of 1666, f. 14b; not in CMA.