Medieval & Renaissance Manuscripts

MS. 51
Chronique de Bertrand du Guesclin
Contents:
  1. Chronique de Bertrand du Guesclin
Date of origin:18 May 1464.
Place of origin:Northern France

Support: Paper codex with watermarks: unicorn (Briquet 11008) on ff. 1-100 and ff. 197-298, anchor (Briquet 386) on ff. 101-148, and letter P (Briquet 8593), on ff. 149-196.
Foliation: Foliation appears in a modern hand in lead in the top right corner of each recto.
Dimensions:280mm x 200mm (leaves), 230mm x 105mm (ruled space)
Collation:iii 116 218 3-516 618 7-1416 15-1912 202 218 iii.
Script:This single bookhand is a neat formal gothic cursive.

Binding:17th-century mottled calf with gilt borders and gilt ornaments and title 'Roman du Glaisequn' on the spine.
Additions: There are a couple of annotative hands in the body of the text. The first is visible on f. 5v at the bottom left; the writing appears to be in Latin--"Quo (or Que) sely dux". Another marginal hand appears on f. 7r, bottom right. The first marginal gloss appears on f. 10r to the left of l. 12, but after that only one or two comments may be found in the entire rest of the book.
Provenance: Early 16th-century ms ex libris and motto of Antoinette de Bronc on f. 298v. Early 18th-century reference to the Bournonville library, in the possession of Alexandre, Prince de Bournonville (1662-1705). His library was sold in 1706, and MS 51 was lot #239 in that sale. Subsequently owned by Richard Heber. The book was then purchased from the Evans sale of Heber's manuscripts on 10 February 1836 as lot #820 by a Thorpe (see Bibliotheca Phillippica II (1966) Sotheby's). From there, the codex comes into the collection of Sir Thomas Phillipps as MS 8194.

Bibliography:Boulton, Maureen. "The Knight and the Rose: French Manuscripts at Notre Dame." The Text in the Community: Essays on Medieval Works, Manuscripts, Authors, and Readers, edited by Jill Mann and Maura Nolan. Notre Dame, University of Notre Dame Press, 2006.