Guillaume de Lorris, Jean de Meung — 15th century; French

Title

Guillaume de Lorris, Jean de Meung — 15th century; French

Shelfmark

MS. Douce 332

Date

15th century

Language

Old French (842-ca. 1400)

Contents

Form

codex

Support

parchment

Physical extent

ii + 195 + ii leaves

Hands

Two scribes. Scribe one completed the first quire and the outer bifolium, recto and verso (i.e. fols. 9 and 16), of the second quire. Scribe two is responsible for fols. 10r (=pencil 11r) through 15v (=pencil 16v) and fol. 17r (=pencil 18r) through part of 87v (=pencil 88v). From there to the end we once again see the work of scribe one. Both scribes use a cursiva formata script. Corrections are sparse, but some examples of lining through, erasure, and addition exist; see, e.g. fols. 2v (=pencil 3v) and 3r (=pencil 4r). Mostly brown ink throughout, with some black stints.

Decoration

59 grisaille miniatures.

Red, blue, and gold border with decorative white penwork on 1r (=fol. iii r) only. Vines and flowers in the same color scheme extend from the border to fill the margins and are accompanied by green leaf designs. Two dragons are at the top center of the border.

Four-line initial on 1r (=fol. iii r) featuring blue letter with white penwork. Letter encloses gold leaf and blue, red, and white decorative vines, and is boxed in red with white penwork and enclosed in a gold border.

Numerous two-line gold initials throughout with blue and red ornamentation and decorative white penwork.

Numerous rubrics accompany miniatures and identify speakers.

Binding

France, 18th c.(?), 290 mm in height, 235 mm wide from center of spine to fore edge. Bound in morocco. Flat boards. Presently the front and back boards are greenish, fading at the spine edge into brown. The spine is uniformly light brown. Two labels inside the front cover list the binding as “blue Turkey” and “red morocco” respectively. Five raised bands on spine. Red, white, and blue headband and tailband. Front decorated with simple frame of three gold-tooled fillets. Back has same decoration, but with the addition at the corners of frames of a small, tooled sun (or flower?) with a face peering out. Title appears in second compartment of spine. Other compartments feature flowers tooled in the center and additional toolwork surrounding. Double fillets on top, fore, and bottom edges. Roll with flower design on front and back turn-ins. Title, second compartment of spine in gold-tooled letters: “ROMAN / DE / LA ROSE”. Marbled endpapers, front and back. Two flyleaves each in front and back; in both, one is joined to the marbled endpaper. Watermark in flyleaves: a cluster of grapes in a cornucopia arranged in four rows of (from top), 1, 2, 3, 2 grapes. Gilt edges. Bound with red ribbon bookmark.

Acquisition

Bequeathed to the Bodleian in 1834

Provenance

An ex-libris appears to have been erased at the bottom of fol. 195 (= pencil fol. 200r).

Bookplate of Jean-Joseph Languet de Gergy (1677-1753), archbishop of Sens 1731-53.

Francis Douce, 1757–1834

Title

The Roman de la Rose by Guillaume de Lorris and Jehan de Meung

Shelfmark

MS. Douce 332

Summary

With four added lines, beginning 'Par la grandehayne diuerse.'.

With the anonymous armorial bookplate of J. J. Languet de Gergy, archbp. of Sens. ('xxxii') leaves, in double columns

Date

written in the 15th cent.

Language

French

Physical facet

On parchment, with many miniatures, illuminated capitals, etc.

Physical extent

196 Leaves