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MS. Fr. c. 30

Summary Catalogue no.: Not in SC (late accession)

Contents

1.
Antoine de la Sale, Le petit Jehan de Saintré

Extract containing an account of the tournament between Saintré and Enguerrant. The account of the first day is omitted, and after the introductory paragraphs there follows an account of the second day, but with the jousts numbered as if it were the first ('A ceste premiere coursse ...') (pr. ed. pp. 170–90). The text agrees closely with London, BL, Cotton, MS. Nero D. ix.

Pr. Pierre Champion and Fernand Desonay, eds., Le petit Jehan de Saintré (Les chefs-d'oeuvre de la renaissance française, 1, Paris, 1926), pp. 160, 166, 170–90.

Rubric: Ci commence les armes de messire Jehan de saintre et de messire enguerrand de seruillon
Incipit: (prologue) Or quant le jour fut venu de commencer les armes de Jehan de saintre
Explicit: (prologue) acompaigne de plusieurs princesses dames et damoiselles de sa court
Incipit: (prologue) Et quant ilz furent venus le roy incontinent
Language(s): Middle French
2. (fols. 6v–7v)
Chronicle of France, 1403–1434
Rubric: Ci commence vne cronicque de france
Incipit: Lan mil iiijciij fut connestable de france
Explicit: Et la fut le connestable et le chancelier de france et appointerent iournee a arras
Language(s): Middle French
(fol. 7v–8r)
Mnemonics, in Latin and French verse and prose, for dates from the murder of the Duke of Orleans in 1407, to the execution of Jacques d'Armagnac, Duc de Nemours, in 1477
Incipit: Pour sauoir lan que monseigneur le duc dorleans fu tue a paris

fol. 8r not ruled, fol. 8v blank.

Language(s): Middle French and Latin

Physical Description

Secundo Folio: apie & lors
Form: codex
Support: parchment
Extent: ii (modern paper) + 8 + ii (modern paper) leaves.
Dimensions (leaf): 300 × 215 mm.
Dimensions (ruled): 220 × 165 mm.
Foliation: The medieval leaves with original foliation in ink: i-viii; and in modern pencil towards the lower gutter corner; the whole re-foliated in modern pencil: i-ii, 1–10.

Collation

Collation uncertain: perhaps a single quire of eight leaves, but the final leaf is not ruled.

Layout

Ruled in very pale red ink; the bottom line and top pair ruled the full width of the page; with single vertical bounding lines ruled the full height of the page; 35 lines of text per page. Headings in red.

Hand(s)

Written in a fine bâtarde script, often with calligraphic flourishes descending from the bottom line.

Decoration

'Fine and good initials.' (Pächt and Alexander i. 756)

All decoration suspect: perhaps 19th- or 20th-cent.: one eight-line initial in blue on a pink ground, both with white tracery, containing scrolling foliage in red, blue, brown, and white on a gold ground, at the start of the main text (fol. 1r); one four-line initial in gold on pink and blue grounds with white tracery, at the start of the Chronicle (fols. 6v), one similar three-line initial (fol. 4r); eight similar two-line initials (fols. 1r-3r, 4r); line-fillers of various patterns in gold on a pink and/or blue ground.

Binding

Half-bound in white parchment and spiral-marbled paper over pasteboards; the spine stamped with a gilt monogram and coronet, and with a brown leather title-piece lettered in gilt 'ARMES | DE | JEHAN | DE | SAINTRÉ | CHRONIQ.'; fol. 8v with a pair of marks towards the fore-edge, perhaps caused by clasp fittings.

History

Origin: 15th century, second half ; French, North

Provenance and Acquisition

Entries concerning the family of St. Pol (?)

Baron Pichon sale, lot 2722.

Maggs Bros.?: No. 199, priced £20 in a bookseller's catalogue, with the description stuck to the upper pastedown; the lower pastedown with Maggs's markings, suggesting that they acquired it in Dec. 1938.

Given by Miss K. Chesney, 1962.

Record Sources

Typescript description by Bodleian Library staff; revised by Peter Kidd, late 1990s.

Digital Images

Digital Bodleian (1 image from 35mm slides)

Bibliography

Abbreviations

View list of abbreviations and editorial conventions.

Last Substantive Revision

2017-07-01: First online publication.