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Detailed record for Royal 20 D IV
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| Part 1 |
ff. 1-310 |
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| Title |
Lancelot du Lac |
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| Origin |
France, N. E. (Arras?) |
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| Date |
1st quarter of the 14th century |
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| Language |
French |
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| Script |
Gothic |
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| Artists |
Attributed to the Master au menton fuyant (Stones 2002) |
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| Decoration |
9 miniatures in colours and gold, with illuminated initials and partial bar borders including drolleries in colours and gold (ff. 53, 102v, 150v, 168v, 187, 194, 207, 225v, 237v, 260). Illuminated initials in colours and gold, some with hybrids, and real (England, France, Castile and Leon), or imaginary heraldic motifs (ff. 9, 60, 94, 114v, 174, 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. |
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| Dimensions in mm |
340 x 240 (240 x 155) |
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| Part 2 |
ff. 1, 102v |
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| Title |
Lancelot du Lac |
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| Origin |
England, S. (Pleshey castle) |
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| Date |
c. 1360- c. 1380 |
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| Decoration |
2 added miniatures in colours and gold, with 2 initials overpainted with the arms of England and Bohun (ff. 1, 102v). |
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| Official foliation |
ff. 310 (+ 4 unfoliated modern paper flyleaves and 2 unfoliated medieval parchment flyleaves at the beginning and at the end) |
| Form |
Parchment codex |
| Binding |
BM/BL in-house. Rebound in 1973. |
| Provenance |
The royal arms of England (e.g., ff. 60, 95), France (e.g., ff. 9, 266), and of Leon-Castile (ff. 295v, 301), some 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. 102) with those of England (f. 1) 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 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. 1) 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. |
| Notes |
Full digital coverage available for this manuscript: see Digitised Manuscripts at http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts.
The text is the third part, i.e. the Lancelot section, of the five-part Lancelot-Grail romance in French prose.
Catchwords, quire signatures. |
| Select bibliography |
H. Oskar Sommer, Le Roman de Merlin or the Early History of King Arthur (London: Privately printed, 1894), facing p. 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), II (1893), 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.
Royal Manuscripts: The Genius of Illumination (London: British Library, 2011), no. 131 [exhibition catalogue]. |
| Last revised: 05 May 2011 |
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Part 1
ff. 1-310 |
| Lancelot du Lac |
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f. 1
Men fighting and monkeys at school |
f. 9
Illuminated initial |
f. 53
Galehaut |
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f. 53
Galehaut |
f. 60
Illuminated initials |
f. 102
Text page |
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f. 150v
Hestor |
f. 150v
Hestor |
f. 150v
Centaur hunting an ape |
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f. 168v
Agravain |
f. 187
Gaheriat and Guidan le Noir |
f. 187
Gaheriat and Guidan le Noir |
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f. 187
Men playing |
f. 194
Combat of Gahieret and Sornehaut |
f. 207
People playing a game |
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f. 207
Arthur and Guinevere |
f. 207
Arthur and Guinevere |
f. 225v
Tournament |
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f. 237v
Lancelot in the enchanted forest |
f. 237v
Lancelot in the enchanted forest |
f. 237v
Grotesque archer |
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f. 237v
Bear and dancing horse |
f. 237v
Lancelot in the enchanted forest |
f. 238
Text page |
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f. 260
Lancelot |
f. 260
Lancelot |
f. 260
Ape and dancing man |
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f. 301
Illuminated initial |
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Part 2
ff. 1, 102v |
| Lancelot du Lac |
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f. 1
Arthur, Lancelot and Guinevere |
f. 1
Arthur, Lancelot, and Guinevere |
f. 102v
Damsel of Hungerford with Arthur and Guinevere |
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f. 102v
Damsel of Hungerford with Arthur and Guinevere |
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