St John's College MS 102

French didactic treatises

Language(s): French

1. Fols. 1–29v:

Incipit: [the incipit partly defaced] A ⟨ ⟩ ma treschiere dame que Iay le rou ⟨ ⟩ ant sur boece de consolacion a vostre seruice et pour vous conforter […] [the text] Une Iouuen ⟨ ⟩ puissant riche Ot vne femm ⟨ ⟩ ellee prudence Et di celle

Explicit: pardonnons toutes iniures et tous vos meffaiz faiz encontre nous A celle fin que dieu au point de la mort nous veulle pardonner les nostres Amen

RENAUT DE LOUHANS OP, Le Livre de Melibée et de Prudence,

a translation of ALBERTANO OF BRESCIA, Liber consolationis et consilii, ed. J. Burke Severs, in W. F. Bryan and Germaine Dempster (eds.), Sources and Analogues of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (1941; rept. New York, 1958), 568–614. Fols. 30–2v are blank but ruled. Sally Mapstone, who has offered valuable advice about this MS, suggests that the collection resembles those in BL, MSS Additional 22768 and Royal 14 E.ii; and Bayonne, BM, MS 1972.

2. Fols. 34–66v:

Incipit: lehan filz patrice sage de tous langages trouua en grece repost ou temple […]

Rubric: [text, fol. 34v] Comment Alixandre enuoya vne epistre a Aristote pour auoir conseil se il ociroit ceulx de perse

Incipit: Tres noble signe de iustice ie senefie a ta prudence

Explicit: et ne sauras metre fin ne mesure a la paine qui ten deuroit estre eniointe Explicit

An abbreviated French translation of PHILIP OF TRIPOLI’s Latin translation from Arabic, Secretum secretorum, the unpublished recension B; see the discussion, M. A. Manzalaoui (ed.), Secretum Secretorum: Nine English Versions, EETS 276 (1977), pp. xxii–xxiii, with references to this MS. Manzalaoui presents a fragmentary English translation at 203–24 (cf. p. xxxvi) and a piece of the French recension C, in parallel with three English versions, at 226–313. Fols. 33–4 have a table of contents.

3. Fols. 67–105:

Incipit: A Rome olt vng empereur qui ot nom dioclesiens It ot en femme de celle femme

Explicit: et quierent dieu leur en rent leur desserte qui pas ne ment

Final rubric: Explicit le romant des vij. sages Et de la male marastre

Roman des sept sages

For the only published Old French prose version, see Le Roux de Lincy (ed.), in A. Loiseleur Deslongchamps, Essai sur les fables indiennes (Paris, 1838), Pt. 2, 1–75 (from BN, MS fr. 19166). The editor knew twenty MSS, all in Parisian libraries, representing three separate recensions. A more recent study, Mauricette Aiache [now Berne]’s 1966 École des Chartes dissertation, remains unpublished. Fol. 105v is blank but ruled.

4. Fols. 106–37v:

Rubric: Cy commence le liure de lordre de Cheualerie

Incipit: A la louenge et a la gloire de la pourueance diuine dieu qui est sires […] [fol. 106v, the text] En vne terre aduint que vng sage cheualier qui longuement auoit maintenu lordre

Explicit: cheualerie pour ce selon nous cy fin a lonneur et a la louenge de dieu nostre seignur glorieux et de nostre dame saintte Marie qui soient benois par tous les siecles des siecles Amen

Final rubric: Explicit lordre de Cheualerie

Le livre de l’ordre de Chevalerie

The Old French translation of RAMON LULL’s Catalan, ed. Vincenzo Minervini, Biblioteca di Filologia Romanza 21 (Bari, 1972), where our MS is mentioned at 41 and cited as G; see also Jonathan A. Glenn (ed.), The Prose Works of Sir Gilbert Hay, vol. III, Scottish Text Society 4th ser. 21 (1993), pp. viii–ix n. 4. A table of contents is on fol. 106rv.

5. Fols. 138–50:

Incipit: Es Confins de pimont en lombardie ainsi comme au pie de la grant montaigne qui deuise

Explicit: de son mortel mary Et Ie prie cellui qui de cour est fui et commencement quil ait de leurs ames mercy Et de tous ceulz qui ce liure liront aussi Amen Amen

PHILIPPE DE MÉZIÈRES ‘Le Miroir des Dames Mariées’ a translation of PETRARCH’s story of Griscida, ed. Elie Golenistcheff-Koutouzoff, L’Histoire de Griseldis en France au xiv^e et au xv^e siècle (Paris, 1933), 157–82 (our version has a moralized conclusion like those quoted from BN, MSS fr. 2201 and 24397 here). Fol. 150v is ruled, but was originally blank.

Added text:

fol. 150v:

Incipit: ⟨a⟩tant sen torna cilz sage et la reine remest moult dolente et esperdue

Explicit: et bourgois sabillerent moult bel car mout orent grant Ioye de cel enfant qui parler deuoit [three illegible words added later]

Physical Description

Secundo Folio: saint pol

Form: codex

Support: Vellum (FSOS/FHHF in books 1–3, HSOS/HFFH in the remainder).

Extent: Fols. iv + 150 + ii (numbered fols. v–vi).

Dimensions (leaf): 250 × 160 mm.

Collation

1⁸ 2⁴ 3⁸ 4⁴ 5⁸ [fol. 32, a booklet boundary] | 6–9⁸ 10² [fol. 66, a booklet boundary] | 11–14⁸ 15⁶⁺¹ (+ 7) [fol. 105, a booklet boundary] | 16–19⁸ [fol. 137, a booklet boundary] | 20⁸ 21² 22^? (three leaves, fols. 148–50). In booklet 1, catchwords at the centre of the leaf, no signatures. In booklet 2, catchwords at the centre of the leaf. Most signatures cut away but enough remain to indicate that all leaves in the first half of each quire were signed with roman numerals and that quires 6–9 = a–d. Prickings on the final bifolium. In booklet 3, catchwords, nearly all partly cut away, towards the gutter. Most signatures cut away, all leaves apparently given an arabic number, 1–4 in each half of the quire. In booklet 4, catchwords towards the gutter; no signatures. In booklet 5, no catchword; partial leaf signatures implying the same format as in booklet 3.

Condition

The lower corner of fol. 22 torn away.

Layout

In long lines, the format varying with the scribe: Scribes 1–2 (quires 1–5, 6–10): writing area 140 × 113 mm. . Written in long lines, 30 lines to the page. No prickings; bounded and ruled in red ink. Punctuation by point only.

Scribe 3 (quires 11–15): writing area 170 × 99 mm. . In long lines, 37 lines to the page. Prickings; bounded and ruled in black ink. Punctuation by medial point and a version of the punctus versus.

Scribe 4 (quires 16–19): writing area 158 × 100 mm. . In long lines, 30 lines to the page (above top line). No prickings; bounded in various inks, including purple, no rules. Punctuation by point and occasional virgula.

Scribe 5 (quires 20–2): writing area 170 × 99 mm. . In long lines, 37 lines to the page. Prickings; bounded and ruled in black and purplish brown ink. Punctuation by medial point.

Hand(s)

Written in lettre bâtarde by four or five scribes, one for each text (each one is a booklet).

Decoration

Booklets 1–2: headings in red.

At the head, a 10-line violet champe on gold leaf, with flower and vine design and demivinet with flowers and gold buds, badly defaced, affecting the legibility of most of the leaf.

Each chapter begins with a 2-line champe.

In booklet 2 only, ochre-slashed capitals divide the text.

Booklets 3–5: headings are unfilled.

At the head, a 10-line plain champe, with gold bud and flower demivinet.

At chapter breaks, 2-line red lombards.

In booklet 4 rubrics have been filled, and at the head of booklet there is only a crude 5-line champe with partial border, badly defaced.

The common finishing of the individual booklets is suggestive of centrally planned piecework production. See AT, no. 761 (75) dating s. xv^1/2.

Binding

Dark brown leather, s. xvii, over millboards with a gold fillet on both boards. Sewn on five thongs. Gold ‘102’ at the head of the spine, in ink on the leading edges. Pastedowns modern paper, a College bookplate on the front pastedown. At the front, two modern paper flyleaves and two medieval vellum flyleaves, both ruled as the pages of text 1, the bottom half of the second (fol. iv) cut away; at the rear, two modern paper flyleaves (v–vi).

History

Origin: s. xv med. ; France

Provenance and Acquisition

‘Chyrshley hathe in kepyng iij. boxys of ewydencys to kepe endeferently bytwen me and wylliam herd asse apperth [sic for appereth] by endenturs made bytwens us and in a box with xxx^ti. ewidences and the other xviij. and in the iij^d. xj.’ (fol. iv, s. xv/xvi).

Pen-trials (fol. ivv, s. xvi).

An old shelfmark ‘74’ and table of contents, omitting the final text (fol. iiiv, s. xvii).

‘Liber Collegij Sanctj Johannis Baptistae Oxon’ ex dono Christophorj Coles artium Bacchalaurij ejusdem Coll Conuictoris 1611^o’ (fol. 2, upper margin).

Record Sources

Ralph Hanna, A descriptive catalogue of the western medieval manuscripts of St. John's College, Oxford (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002)

Availability

For enquiries relating to this manuscript please contact St John's College Library.

Bibliography

Aïache, Mauricette. ‘Les Versions françaises en prose du Roman des sept sages’, (Unpublished dissertation, École Nationale de Chartres, 1966).

Alexander, J. J. G., and Elźbieta Temple, Illuminated Manuscripts in Oxford College Libraries, the University Archives and the Taylor Institution (Oxford, 1985).

Deslongchamps, Loiseleur, Essai sur les fables indiennes (Paris, 1838).

Glenn, Jonathan A. (ed.), The Prose Works of Sir Gilbert Hay, vol. III, Scottish Text Society 4th ser. 21 (1993).

Golenistcheff-Koutouzoff, Elie, L’Histoire de Griseldis en France au xive et au xve siècle (Paris, 1933).

Manzalaoui, M. A. (ed.), Secretum Secretorum: Nine English Versions, Early English Text Society 276 (1977).

Minervini, Vincenzo (ed.), Ramon Llull, Livre de l'Ordre de Chevalerie, Biblioteca di Filologia Romanza 21 (Bari: Adriatica Editrice, 1972).

Severs, J. Burke, 'Renaud de Louens, Le Livre de Mellibee et Prudence', in W. F. Bryan and Germaine Dempster (eds.), Sources and Analogues of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (1941; rept. New York, 1958), 568–614.

Funding of Cataloguing

Conversion of the printed catalogue to TEI funded by the Thompson Family Charitable Trust

Abbreviations

View list of abbreviations and editorial conventions.

Last Substantive Revision

2023-07: First online publication

A catalogue of Western manuscripts at the Bodleian Libraries and selected Oxford colleges