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Detailed record for Additional 5474
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| Title |
Tristan en prose with interpolations of Lancelot en prose (ff. 141-151) |
| Origin |
Northern France |
| Date |
4th quarter of the 13th century |
| Language |
French |
| Script |
Gothic |
| Artists |
Illuminated by the same artist as Bibliotheque Nationale de Paris, fr. 110 (see Stones 2003). |
| Decoration |
26 miniatures in colours with gold (ff. 2, 9, 12, 23v, 27v, 41, 52, 58v, 72v, 74, 94v, 115, 130, 144, 150v, 162, 172, 191v, 217v, 230v, 243v, 250, 258v, 268v, 283v. 290v). Ink drawings of helmets (f. 133v). Puzzle initials in red and blue with pen-flourishing in both colours, in formula such as 'Or dist li contes...' and 'En ceste partie..'. Numerous initials in red or blue with pen-flourishing in the other colour at minor divisions in the text. Small initials in red or blue at the beginning of each verse in the 3 lais (ff. 30, 179, 214-15). |
| Dimensions in mm |
355 x 255 (270 x 185) in two columns |
| Official foliation |
ff. 305 (f. 1 is a modern paper flyleaf + 1 unfoliated paper flyleaf at the beginning and 2 at the end) |
| Form |
Parchment codex |
| Binding |
Post-1600. Red leather with gold tooling; marbled endpapers [perhaps the Paulmy binding]. |
| Provenance |
The Cistercian Abbey of Fontfrede (or Fontfroide), Languedoc (closed down in 1791): sold by them to a family whose name is not given.
Re-bound by Marc-Antoine-René de Voyer d'Argenson, Marquis de Paulmy, Minister of France and bibliophile (b. 1722, d. 1787) (see memoir on f. 1).
Louis César de la Baume-le-Blanc (b. 1708, d. 1780), duc de la Vallière, peer of France, governor of the Bourbonnais, and book collector: his sale, 1784, no 3991 (see Guillaume de Bure, Catalogue des livres de la bibliothèque de feu M. le duc de la Vallière (Paris: Guillaume de Bure, 1783)).
Pierre-Antoine Bolongano-Crevenna (d. 1792) : his sale, Amsterdam, 26th April 1790, no. 513.
Purchased from a French emigrant before 1796 (see Ward 1910 and Middleton 2003) . |
| Notes |
Some pages (e.g. ff. 139 and 267) are damaged and there are lacunae in the text.
The text is Part II of the long version of the Prose Tristan. The death of Tristan is followed by nine episodes, each beginning with a formula such as 'Or dist li contes..' The final episode is imperfect at the end. Royal 20 D ii has a slightly more complete version of the text. |
| Select bibliography |
Index to the Additional Manuscripts, with those of the Egerton Collection, Preserved in the British Museum, and Acquired in the Years 1783-1835 (London: British Museum, 1849), p. 390.
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, pp. 359-61.
Eugene Vinaver, Etudes sur le Tristan en Prose (Paris: Honoré Champion, 1925), pp. 34, 47.
Anne Bondeelle-Souchier, Bibliothèques cisterciennes dans la France médiévale: Répertoire des Abbayes d’hommes (Paris: Centre national de la recherche scientifique, 1991), p. 113.
Jacqueline Thibault Schaefer, 'The Discourse of the Figural Narrative in the Illuminated Manuscripts of Tristan' in Word and Image in Arthurian Literature, ed. by Keith Busby (New York: Garland, 1996), pp. 174-202 (p. 175, 179).
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), pp. 125-44 (pp. 127, 131, 137).
Roger Middleton, ' Manuscripts of the Lancelot-Grail Cycle in England and Wales: Some Books and their Owners, (see Stones, above), pp. 219-235 (p. 227).
Emmanuele Baumgartner, trans. Sarah Singer, 'The Prose Tristan' in The Arthur of the French, ed. by Glyn S. Burgess and Karen Pratt , Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages, 4 vols (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2006), IV, pp. 325-41 [on the text].
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]. |
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f. 74
Tristan |
f. 74
Tristan |
f. 144
Lancelot |
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f. 144
Lancelot |
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