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Detailed record for Lansdowne 782
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| Title |
Chanson d'Aspremont (verses 209-514, imperfect) |
| Origin |
England, Central (Hertfordshire) |
| Date |
c. 1240 - c. 1250 |
| Language |
French (Anglo-Norman) |
| Script |
Gothic |
| Decoration |
45 pen drawings and fragments of 2 more, with a wash of green, and often red, or sometimes yellow and/or blue, often of knights on horseback in combat. Small simple initials in red or green. |
| Dimensions in mm |
230 x 165 (165 x 120) in two columns |
| Official foliation |
ff. 38 (f. 1 is a parchment fragment attached to a paper leaf + 5 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning and 8 at the end). |
| Collation |
i8 (ff. 1-8), ii6 ff. 9-14), iii4 (ff. 15-18), iv7 (ff. 19-25), v8 (ff. 26-33), viI5 (ff. 34-38). |
| Form |
Parchment codex |
| Binding |
Post-1600. Red leather embossed with the Lansdowne arms in the centre; marbled endpapers. |
| Provenance |
William Petty (formerly Fitzmaurice) (b. 1737, d. 1805), 2nd earl of Shelburne and 1st marquess of Lansdowne, prime minister; purchased by the British Museum together with 1244 other Lansdowne manuscripts in 1807. |
| Notes |
Full digital coverage available for this manuscript: see Digitised Manuscripts at http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts.
According to Hunt 1987, one of three thirteenth-century English manuscripts with secular romance illustrations.
Verse numbers are according to Roepke (1908) in de Mandach (1975), p. 10.
One quire is lacking between ff. 25 and 26, so that lines 402-482 are missing.
A more complete version of the text in Anglo-Norman French is found in British Library, Additional 35289, which contains verses 24-376 and 395-540. |
| Select bibliography |
[Henry Ellis and Francis Douce], A Catalogue of the Lansdowne Manuscripts in the British Museum (London, 1819), no. 782.
Walter de Gray Birch and Henry Jenner, Early Drawings and Illuminations: An Introduction to the Study of Illustrated Manuscripts (London: Bagster and Sons, 1879), p. 7.
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, H. L. D. Ward, I, pp. 600-602.
Fritz Roepke, Studien zur Chanson d'Aspremont: Beschreibung der Handschriften, Bibliographie, Concordanztabelle, Textproben (Greifswald: Druck von F. W. Kunike, 1908-9).
Rita Lejeune and Jacques Stiennon, La legende de Roland dans l'art du moyen age, 2 vols (Arcade: Brussels, 1966), I, 210, colour pl. XIX; II, pls 163-169, including pl. 65bis.
David J. A. Ross, 'A Thirteenth-Century Anglo-Norman Workshop Illustrating Secular Literary Manuscripts?', Mélanges offerts à Rita Lejeune , 2 vols (Duculot: Gembloux, 1969), I, 689-94.
André de Mandach, Naissance et développement de la Chanson de Geste en Europe (Geneva: Libraire Droz, 1961- ), III: Chanson d'Aspremont, A. Les cours d'Agoland et de Charlemagne, Publications romanes et françaises, 134 (1975), pp. 3, 27-31, 33-34, 151 as 'L2'.
Nigel Morgan, Early Gothic Manuscripts, 2 vols, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 4 (London Harvey Miller, 1982-1988), I: 1190-1250, no. 82, pl. 275 [with additional bibliography].
Tony Hunt, 'The Tristan Ilustrations in MS London, BL Add. 11619', in Rewards and Punishments in the Arthurian Romances and Lyric Poetry of Mediaeval France, ed. by Peter V. Davies and Angus J. Kennedy, Arthurian Studies, 17 (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1987), pp. 45-60 (pp. 52, 56).
Ruth J. Dean and Maureen B. M. Boulton, Anglo-Norman Literature: A Guide to Texts and Manuscripts, Anglo-Norman Text Society, Occasional Publications Series, 3 (London: Anglo-Norman Text Society, 1999), no. 77.
Pamela Porter, Medieval Warfare in Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2000), p. 20.
Andrew Taylor, 'Manual to Miscellany: Stages in the Commercial Copying of Vernacular Literature in England', The Yearbook of English Studies, 33 (2003), 1-17 (p. 4).
Dictionnaire étymologique de l'ancien français: Complément Bibliographique, ed. by Frankwalt Mo¨hren (Tubingen: Niemeyer, 2007), col. 44. |
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ff. 10v-11
King and Knights |
f. 10v
Knight and king |
f. 11
Knights |
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ff. 18v-19
Baptism, and Flotilla |
f. 18v
Baptism |
f. 19
Charlemagne |
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f. 19
Flotilla |
f. 26v-27
Battle |
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