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MS. Douce 134

Summary Catalogue no.: 21708

Contents

Livre de la Vigne nostre Seigneur

A treatise on Antichrist, the Last Judgement, Heaven and Hell, comprising the final part ('le desrain liure') of a longer text.

Grenoble, Bibliothèque municipale, 408 (337) contains 'le premier livre de la Vigne Nostre Seigneur...et fut acompli le Ve jour de mars l'an M CCCC LXIII / Et est a savoir que le second livre fut premierement fait et acompli que cestuy qui est le premier' (see ARLIMA); this manuscript is from the Grande Chartreuse (Raymond Etaix in Scriptorium 42/1 (1988), 68). Grenoble, Bibliothèque municipale, 409 (399), from the Dominican friary in Grenoble, contains another copy of Book 1; no other text of Book 2 is known.

Translation: End of Time in the Middle Ages: The Vineyard of Our Saviour - Bodleian MS. Douce 134, tr. Marijim Thoene and Guy Mermier (Michigan Publishing Services, 2022) (https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.11767532).

Rubric: (fol. ii, table of contents) Sensuit ce que est contenu en present \desrain/ liure de la vigne nostre s(eigneur)
Rubric: Cy comence le desrain liure de la vigne nostre s(eigneur)
Incipit: Voca operarios ... comme le soir feust venu le seigneur de la vigne dist a son procureur les paroles proposees
Explicit: et il demourra pour auoir son paiement de ses [in other hand: faultes]
Language(s): Middle French (with extensive quotations in Latin)

Physical Description

Form: codex
Support: parchment
Extent: v + 166 leaves
Dimensions (leaf): c. 240 × 170 mm.

Decoration

Some fine, many good miniatures.

Borders.

Initials. By several hands, the later one at the end of the manuscript related to Chantilly, Museé Condé, Fr. 495. (Pächt and Alexander i. 710, pl. LIV)

Binding

Contemporary (?) binding of bevelled wooden boards covered with brown leather, rebacked, with incised decoration including flowers and inscription 'dominus Johannes Blathe' possibly added slightly later. Four bosses, with fixture for a clasp which fastened to a pin in the centre of the back cover.

History

Origin: c. 1450–1470 (before 1463?) ; French

Provenance and Acquisition

'Dominus Johannes Blathe', incised on the binding.

Gilbert Paignon Dijonval (d. 1792); Charles-Gilbert, viscount Morel de Vindé (d. 1842); Dijonval-Morel Vindé sale, April 1823, lot 190.

Robert Triphook, 1823 catalogue, no. 2485.

T. F. Dibdin: two pages reproduced in his Reminiscences II (1836), p. 769.

'The library of a collector', at Evans, 28 May 1832, lot. 1423, bought by Payne for £19 15s.

Purchased from Payne by Douce in June 1832; '31. 10. 0' in pencil on the front pastedown, perhaps Payne's price.

Bequeathed by Douce to the Bodleian in 1834.

Record Sources

Adapted (2018) with some additions from The Douce Legacy (1984), no. 248; Pächt and Alexander (see Bibliography); and the Summary Catalogue (1897).
Summary Catalogue, vol. 4, p. 532

Availability

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Digital Images

Digital Bodleian (full digital facsimile)
Digital Bodleian (78 images from 35mm slides)

Bibliography

Abbreviations

View list of abbreviations and editorial conventions.

Last Substantive Revision

2022-05: Add reference to translation.