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Royal MS 20 D IV
- Record Id:
- 040-002107693
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-002105724
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000338.0x00023c
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Royal MS 20 D IV
- Title:
-
Lancelot du Lac
- Scope & Content:
-
The present manuscript contains part of the prose cycle known as Lancelot du Lac, or the Prose Lancelot, beginning two-thirds of the way through the second part at 'Mout fu rice la cours ke li rois tint a celle pentecouste' (f. 1r) and ending half way through the third part, the Agravain, at 'Mais atant laist li contes a parler diaus. Et retourne a Lanselot dou Lak tout ensi kil sen entra en la foriest pereilleuse' (f. 310v). No formal division between the two parts is indicated (f. 168v).
Decoration:
9 miniatures in colours and gold, with illuminated initials and partial bar borders including drolleries in colours and gold (ff. 53r, 150v, 168v, 187r, 194r, 207r, 225v, 237v, 260r). Illuminated initials in colours and gold, some with hybrids, and real (England, France, Castile and Leon), or imaginary heraldic motifs (ff. 9r, 60r, 94r, 102v, 104r, 174r, 191v, 295v) and marginal extensions. 'Champ' initials in gold on blue and rose grounds with penwork decoration in white, some with birds, animals or imaginary coats of arms. 2 miniatures were added in c.1360-c.1380 at Pleshey Castle, Kent, when the manuscript was owned by the Bohuns, and the 2 initials underneath were overpainted with the arms of England and the Bohun family (ff. 1, 102v).
Illuminations attributed to 'the Master au menton fuyant' (Stones, 2002).
The subjects of the miniatures are:
f. 1r, Arthur engaged in conversation with his barons, while Lancelot and Guinevere are whispering together, and on the right, the king and queen presiding over a banquet; an illuminated initial underneath with the arms of England and Bohun overpainted, and a full bar border with scenes of two men fighting and monkeys at school, in the lower margin.
f. 53r, Galehaut (Galehous) sleeping in the forest with his four squires approaching on horses.
f. 102v, The Damsel of Hungerford with Arthur and Guinevere, with an illuminated initial overpainted with the arms of Bohun.
f. 150v, Hestor (Hector) rides through water to a castle.
f. 168v, A woman mourning in a tent with Agravain approaching on horseback.
f. 187r, The combat between Gaheriat and Guidan le Noir, with a woman behind Gaheriat.
f. 194r, The combat between Gahieret and Sornehaut.
f. 207r, A damsel brings news to Arthur and Guinevere.
f. 225v, Trumpeters and jousters at the tournament.
f. 237v, Lancelot with damsels in the enchanted forest and later he is seated in a chair by two damsels receiving the crown of his father, King Ban to lift the enchantment.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Royal Collection
Royal Manuscripts Digitisation Project - Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002105724
040-002107693 - Is part of:
- Royal MS 1 A I-20 E X : Royal Manuscripts
Royal MS 20 D IV : Lancelot du Lac - Hierarchy:
- 032-002105724[1834]/040-002107693
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Royal MS 1 A I-20 E X
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
-
A parchment codex
- Digitised Content:
- http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Royal_MS_20_D_IV (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- French, Old
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1300
- End Date:
- 1380
- Date Range:
- 1300-1380
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Material: Parchment codex.
Dimensions: 340 x 240mm (text space: 240 x 155mm).
Foliation: ff. vi + 310 + vi (unfoliated flyleaves are 4 modern paper leaves and 2 parchment leaves at the beginning and the end).
Collation: i-xxxviii8(1-304), xxxix6(305-310). Catchwords at the end of each gathering.
Layout: Written in two columns of 40 lines.
Script: Gothic.
Binding: British Museum/British Library in-house. Rebound in 1973.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: France, N. E. (Arras?)
Provenance:
The royal arms of England (e.g., ff. 60r, 95r), France (e.g., ff. 9r, 266r), and of Leon-Castile (ff. 295v, 301r), the one on f. 295v with incorrect tinctures.
A member of the Bohun family, possibly Humphrey of Bohun (d. 1373), 11th Earl of Hereford, Essex and Northampton or his daughter Eleanor (d. 1399): the Bohun arms (f. 102r) with those of England (f. 1r) painted over the original initials. Thomas [Thomas of Woodstock], Duke of Gloucester (b. 1355, d. 1397), the seventh son of Edward III, married to Eleanor Bohun: perhaps to be identified with 'un large livre en Frannceis appellez le Romance de Lancelot' in the inventory of his possessions seized at Pleshey by Richard II after Thomas's arrest and murder Large shelfmark '2' (unfoliated parchment flyleaf no. [v] at the beginning).
The Old Royal Library (the English Royal Library): perhaps to be identified with 'Lancelot du Lac' included in the list of books at Richmond Palace of 1535, no. 99; added title 'Le second volume de Lancelot', 17th century (f. 1r) corresponding to the entry in the catalogue of 1666, Royal Appendix 71, f. 11v.
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:
-
H. Oskar Sommer The Vulgate Version of Arthurian Romances, 7 vols (Washington, D.C., 1909-1913, rpt New York, 1979), I, facing p. xxiv, II, p. 86-III, p. 224 [an edition of the text based on Additionals 10292-10294 with variants from this manuscript].
H. L. D. Ward and J. A. Herbert, Catalogue of Romances in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum, 3 vols (London: British Museum, 1883-1910), I, p. 351.
H. Omont, 'Les manuscrits français des rois d'Angleterre au château de Richmond', in Etudes romanes dédiés à Gaston Paris (Paris: É. Bouillon, 1891), pp. 1-13 (p. 10).
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. 378.
Francis Wormald, 'Afterthought on the Stockholm Exhibition', Konsthistorisk Tidskrift, 22 (1953), 75-84 (p. 82).
A. Micha, 'Les Manuscrits du Lancelot en Prose', Romania, 84 (1963), 28-60 (pp. 59-60).
Margaret Rickert, Painting in Britain: the Middle Ages, 2nd edn (London: Penguin Books, 1965), p. 189, n. 10.
Lucy Freeman Sandler, Gothic Manuscripts 1285-1385, 2 vols, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 5 (London: Harvey Miller, 1986), II, no. 136.
Jeanne E. Krochalis, 'The Books and Readings of Henry V and his Circle', The Chaucer Review, 23 (1988), 50-77 (p. 54).
The Image of Time: European Manuscript Books (Lisbon: Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, 2000), no. 63 [exhibition catalogue].
The Libraries of King Henry VIII, ed. by J. P. Carley, Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues, 7 (London: The British Library, 2000), H1.89, p. xxiv.
Tine Melis, 'An Alexander Manuscript for a Powerful Patron (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Bodl. 264)?', in ’Als Ich Can’: Liber Amicorum in Memory of Professor Dr. Maurits Smeyers, ed. by Bert Cardon and others, 2 vols (Paris: Uitgeverij Peeters, 2002), pp. 961-81 (p. 972).
Lucy Freeman Sandler, 'The Illustration of the Psalms in Fourteenth-Century English Manuscripts: Three Psalters of the Bohun Family', in Reading Texts and Images: Essays on Medieval and Renaissance Art and Patronage in Honour of Margaret M. Manion, ed. by Bernard J. Muir (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2002), 123-51 (p. 124 n. 5).
Alison Stones, 'A Note on the ‘Maître au menton fuyant' in ’Als Ich Can’: Liber Amicorum in Memory of Professor Dr. Maurits Smeyers, ed. by Bert Cardon and others, 2 vols (Paris: Uitgeverij Peeters, 2002), pp. 1247-271 (pp. 1247, 1263, pl. 15).
Pamela Porter, Courtly Love in Medieval Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2003), p. 44.
Alison Stones, 'Mise en Page in the French Lancelot-Grail: the First 150 years of the Illustrative Tradition' in A Companion to the Lancelot-Grail Cycle, ed. by Carol Dover (Woodbridge: D. S. Brewer, 2003), 125-144 (pp. 131, 134, 137).
James P. Carley, The Books of King Henry VIII and His Wives, preface by David Starkey (London: British Library, 2004), p. 36, pls 28, 29.
Henry VIII: Man and Monarch, ed. by Susan Doran (London: British Library, 2009), no. 21 [exhibition catalogue].
Alison Stones, 'Fabrication et illustration des manuscrits arthuriens', in La légende du roi Arthur, ed. by Thierry Delcourt (Paris: Bibiothèque nationale de France, 2009), 19-30 (p. 24) [exhibition catalogue].
La légende du roi Arthur, ed. by Thierry Delcourt (Paris: Bibiothèque nationale de France, 2009), pl. on p. 158.
Scot McKendrick, John Lowden, and Kathleen Doyle, Royal Manuscripts: The Genius of Illumination (London: British Library, 2011), no. 131 [exhibition catalogue].
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)