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Detailed record for Royal 19 C XII
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| Title |
L'Estoire del Sainte Graal (imperfect) |
| Origin |
England or France |
| Date |
2nd half of the 13th century |
| Language |
French |
| Script |
Gothic |
| Decoration |
Puzzle initials in red and blue with penwork decoration and pen-flourishing in either colour (e.g. ff. 1, 37). Numerous small initials at the beginning of chapters in alternating red or blue with pen-flourishing in the other colour. Space left for a miniature or rubric (f. 1). Ink drawing of a monk carrying a cross (f. i verso). |
| Dimensions in mm |
340 x 240 (245 x 165) |
| Official foliation |
ff. ii + 85 (+ 1 unfoliated paper flyleaf; ff. i and 85 are medieval parchment flyleaves attached to modern endleaves) |
| Collation |
Catchwords and quire numbers at the bottom of the last folio of each quire |
| Form |
Parchment codex |
| Binding |
BM/BL in-house. White leather with gold-tooling; marbled endpapers. |
| Provenance |
Notes in English (?) cursive hands on flyleaves. Inscribed 'Jacob mathiis' (f. 84v).
The Old Royal Library (the English Royal Library): in the catalogue of 1666 (f. 11).
Presented to the British Museum by George II in 1757 as part of the Old Royal Library. |
| Notes |
The text contained in this manuscript is the shorter prose version of de Boron's verse romance, 'L'estoire de Joseph d'Arimathie', sometimes wrongly attributed to de Boron (see Ponceau, 1997 and Bogdanow, 2000). 4 or 5 folios are missing at the end (see Ward 1910). |
| Select bibliography |
H. Oskar Sommer, Le Roman de Merlin or the Early History of King Arthur (London: Privately printed, 1894), pp. xxiv.
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. 342.
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. 338.
L'estoire del Saint Graal, ed. by Jean-Paul Ponceau, 2 vols (Paris: Honoré Chapman, 1997), I, pp. xxvi, xxviii-ix.
Fanny Bogdanow, ' La Vision d'Histoire Arthurienne selon Robert de Boron' in Fils sans père: Etudes sur le 'Merlin' de Robert de Boron, ed. by Denis Hue, Medievalia 35 (Orleans: Paradigme, 2000), pp. 51-76 [on the text].
Roger Middleton, 'Manuscripts of the Lancelot-Grail Cycle in England and Wales: Some Books and their Owners', in A Companion to the Lancelot-Grail Cycle, ed. by Carol Dover (Woodbridge: D. S. Brewer, 2003), pp. 219-35 (p. 223).
Roger Middleton, 'The Manuscripts', 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. 8-92 (p. 80). |
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f. 1v
Initials |
f. 2r
Initials |
f. 3r
Initials |
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f. 37
Puzzle initial |
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