Lancelot Proper (Lancelot du Lac)
F-4pi4
This description has been prepared as part of the Digital Explorations: Opening the Medieval Manuscript Fragments from the Ripon Cathedral Library project supported by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Research England under the Enhancing Research Culture funding stream.
The current description is based on my observations in addition to some previous work.
1./ There is a partial description in Sian Prosser's handlist, online to consult at: https://explore.library.leeds.ac.uk/multimedia/31553/Ripon%20Fragments%20partial%20handlist.pdf
2./ Prosser uses these fragments as a case study in her thesis (pp. 25-31), also available to consult at: https://explore.library.leeds.ac.uk/multimedia/31554/Ripon%20Fragments%20-Sian%20Prosser%20.pdf
Prosser concentrates more on the physical aspects of the fragment and its relationship to the host volume. See Prosser for more information on the host volume itself and its condition.
3./ Erasmus student, Lily Ventoso-Y-Fony, carried out a preliminary transcription of the fragments as part of a project at the University of Leeds, under the supervision of Dr Magriet Hoogvliet in 2015. She also created an entry on the IRHT database, available to consult at: https://jonas.irht.cnrs.fr/consulter/manuscrit/detail_manuscrit.php?projet=80613
General Information
The writing area of each leaf is organised into 2 columns; 38-40 lines to a column (both columns - part 1r: 40 lines; part 1v: 38 lines; part 2r: 38 lines; part 2v: 39 lines). Prosser, following Woledge, identifies the hand as of the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century based partly on the evidence of dashes above 'i's to identify them from other minims. This date would place the fragment within the major period of production of French Lancelot manuscripts. The hand is gothic, Northern semi-textualis, and reasonably legible. There are some parts of the text missing because of worm holes in the fragment on both parts, and some of the edges of the text are missing, especially on part 2 verso. Part 2 verso in particular has some faint passages where text has been pulled off, perhaps when the folio was detached from the binding, and also areas where residue - possibly glue - obscures the text. This makes it very difficult to obtain a full and accurate transcription of this verso. Both parts have a c.10mm fold down the left-hand side - relating to their reuse as pastedowns - obscuring the beginning of some lines (this fold is more pronounced on part 2), though these can still be read by gently lifting the folded section.
Two complete parchment folios from a copy of the Lancelot Proper, previously used as pastedowns in the binding of the Secunda pars divini operis Pantheologie summe fratris Rayneri Pisani by Rainerius de Pisis (Lyon: Constantin Fradin, 1519), and now detached. The pattern of worm damage matches that in the printed book of which they were once part.
Original Condition
No page numbers visible
Current Condition
The two leaves were used as pastedowns in a binding and have been cropped to fit the host volume. There are foldstains indicating the presence of tannin on the verso of each leaf, and extensive evidence across both leaves of worm damage, other damage (removal of patches of the surface of the text), and some residue (possibly glue) on both versos. When replaced in the host volume, the pattern of worm aligns with the worm damage in the printed book. Prosser notes the relatively simple appearance and small size of the leaves, indicating that they did not come from a large or high quality manuscript. It is nonetheless a tidy and well-presented copy in the main.
Book Decoration and Musical Notation
Alternating blue and red capitals which are two-three lines high with minimal flourishing; red paraph marks; red highlighting of tironian 'et', the initial 'h' (Hector), and other letters; marginal manicule on part 2 recto added in a later hand. The manicule points to a part of the text in which Hector snatches an axe from a peasant, refuses to return it, and scares him off with it. We can speculate that a later reader perhaps enjoyed this episode in particular and wanted to remind themself of its location.
Content
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Content Item
- Text Language Old French
- Title Lancelot Proper (Lancelot en prose)
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Content Description
There is a certain irony in finding just two folios of the longest prose romance in the Vulgate Cycle being used as binding material for a copy of the Pantheologia, one of the longest books written in the Middle Ages, by the Dominican friar, Rainerius de Pisis (d. 1351). The two leaves of this fragment contain several episodes from the so-called Lancelot Proper or Lancelot du Lac (1215-35), the longest part of the Vulgate Cycle of Arthurian prose romances, based on the earlier verse romance by Chrétien de Troyes: Lancelot, Le Chevalier de la Charrette (1177-81).
The episodes or part episodes presented in the two leaves are the adventures of Hector (des Mares), younger half-brother of Lancelot. In the first part of the fragment, Hector encounters a desperate lady being held by three men, and bravely charges in and messes them all up, rescuing the lady who is suitably grateful. He then plunges into a fierce battle to rescue her husband who turns out to be Sinados, lord of Windessore (Windsor) Castle. There is then a gap in the action of what I estimate amounts to just one missing leaf, followed by part 2 of our fragment. In this second part, Hector is compelled to stay the night in a fairly inaccessible castle (L'Estroite Marche), against his wishes, and registers his displeasure at the cold shoulder he has been given by the townspeople who have shut him out of their homes by hacking away at their doors and the castle gate with an axe he has stolen from a peasant. After an initial brush off, the lord of the castle warms to Hector when he discovers that he is one of Guinevere's knights, and they make friends. The host's castle was formerly the centre of a bitter turf war between him and several neighbouring barons. The ongoing dispute has exhausted him and his men, though these days his main quarrel is with one of the seneschals of the King with a Hundred Knights, one Marganor (whom Hector will eventually defeat in a duel). The Lord of L'Estroite Marche regrets that he has noone to leave his castle to, except his beautiful daughter who is of childbearing age and then some, whom he does not want to give in marriage to just anyone. This is where the fragment breaks off.
The episodes are listed as follows in Sommer's edition:
Hector at the crossing of the seven roads
Hector and Sinados de Windesores
The Story of Sinados
The Castel L'estroite marche
The Lord of L'estroite marche.
Fragment text:
Part 1 recto, incipit: '[a]lerent ainsi com li vallez enseigna la voie'; explicit: 'et il fet trop grant duel si [...]'.
Part 1 verso, incipit: 'vient a li. Et li dit. Ha, [hole in ms] nos somes mort'; explicit: '[an]core m'est il moult bel quant ge me sui eschapez vif [et]'.
Part 2 recto, incipit: 'moult fort et moult bel et bien seant'; explicit: 'et saut arrieres.'
Part 2 verso, incipit: 'et dit que deables aient part en tant de portes'; explicit: 'Ne ge ne la voil marier jusque tant [...]'.
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- Edition Lancelot du Lac: Roman français du XIII siècle vol II, eds. Marie-Luce Chênerie, d’après l’édition d'Elspeth Kennedy (Paris: Livre de Poche, 1993), pp. 236-246 (fragment 8 part 1); 254-264 (fragment 8 part 2).
- Secondary Literature B. Woledge, Bibliographie des romans et nouvelles en prose francaise antérieurs à 1500 supplément 1954-1973 (Genève: Droz, 1975), p. 52.; Sian Prosser, Ripon Fragments, University of Leeds Libraries, Special Collections, 2011, pp. 25-31.; Unpublished partial transcription by Lily Ventoso-Y-Fony, University of Leeds, 2015 and related IRHT entry (https://jonas.irht.cnrs.fr/consulter/manuscrit/detail_manuscrit.php?projet=80613)
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Remarks
The two leaves of the fragment are non-consecutive, however, the content missing between the two leaves is approximately enough to fit just one further leaf, so I would suppose that there is just one missing folio which was originally copied between our two. Was the missing leaf perhaps used for some other purpose or binding after the original manuscript was broken apart, if that was its fate? Whatever the case may have been, it is certainly of interest that the two leaves picked for the binding were from the same original manuscript and yet not quite consecutive.
History
The Ripon Book Collection has been on long-term deposit at the University of Leeds, Special Collections since 1980.
The original collection was amassed by Anthony Higgin, Dean of Ripon Cathedral (1608-1624), and bequeathed to Ripon Cathedral. Since around 1920, fragments used as pastedowns and binding strips in the collection have been gradually identified and examined, though many are still unidentified. Many fragments remain in situ, with around 65 detached fragments conserved in three boxes in Special Collections at the University of Leeds Libraries.
The two separate folios which are now under the shelfmark, MS Ripon Cathedral Fragments/8 (Parts 1 and 2) were detached during the process of conservation of the host volume.
Host Volume
https://explore.library.leeds.ac.uk/special-collections-explore/265747
Bibliography
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H. Oskar Sommer, The Vulgate Version of the Arthurian Romances, edited from manuscripts in the British Museum. Vol III - Le Livre de Lancelot del Lac, part I (Washington: The Carnegie Institute of Washington, 1910), pp. 329-337.
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Elspeth Kennedy, Lancelot do Lac: The Non-Cyclic Old French Prose Romance, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980).
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Lancelot du Lac: Roman français du XIII siècle vol II, eds. Marie-Luce Chênerie, d’après l’édition d'Elspeth Kennedy (Paris: Livre de Poche, 1993), pp. 236-246 (fragment 8 part 1); 254-264 (fragment 8 part 2).
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Lancelot-Grail: The Old French Arthurian Vulgate and Post-Vulgate in Translation, volume 3: Lancelot parts I and II, ed. by Norris J. Lacy and trans. by Samuel N. Rosenberg and Carleton W. Carroll (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2010), pp. 350ff.
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B. Woledge, Bibliographie des romans et nouvelles en prose francaise antérieurs à 1500 supplément 1954-1973 (Genève: Droz, 1975), p. 52.
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Sian Prosser, Ripon Fragments, University of Leeds Libraries, Special Collections, 2011, pp. 25-31.
https://explore.library.leeds.ac.uk/multimedia/31554/Ripon%20Fragments%20-Sian%20Prosser%20.pdf -
Unpublished transcription by Lily Ventoso-Y-Fony, University of Leeds, 2015 and related IRHT entry.
https://jonas.irht.cnrs.fr/consulter/manuscrit/detail_manuscrit.php?projet=80613 -
Miranda Griffin, The Object and the Cause in the Vulgate Cycle (Oxford: Legenda, 2005).
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Elspeth Kennedy, Lancelot and the Grail: A Study of the Prose Lancelot (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986).
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Approches du Lancelot en prose, études recueillies par Jean Dufournet (Paris : Champion, 1984).
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Irène Fabry-Tehranchi, Text et Images des manuscrits du Merlin et de la Suite Vulgate (XIIIe-XVe siècle) (Turnhout : Brepols, 2014).
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Frank Brandsma, 'Kin: Hector and Lancelot in Part III of the Prose Lancelot', in Thea Summerfield and Keith Busby, People and Texts: Relationships in Medieval Literature (Leiden: Brill, 2007), pp. 17-28.