Details

Subject(s)

• Courtly love—Poetry [Browse]
• Romances—France [Browse]

Related name

• Jean, de Meun, approximately 1240-approximately 1305 [Browse]
• Princeton University. Library. Manuscript. Garrett 126 [Browse]

Donor

• Garrett, Robert, 1875-1961 [Browse]

Library of Congress genre(s)

• Poetry [Browse]

Getty AAT genre

• Manuscripts, French—17th century [Browse]
• Illuminated manuscripts—France—14th century [Browse]
• Miniatures (Illuminations)—France—14th century [Browse]
• Parchment [Browse]

Summary note

Illuminated manuscript (Paris, mid-14th century), containing three Old French texts: Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun, Roman de la rose; Jean de Meun, Le testament; and Jean de Meun, Le codicille. See digitized facsimile.

Notes

• Ms. codex.
• Supplied title.
• Collation: Parchment; ff. i (marbled paper) + ii (modern paper) + 183 + ii (modern paper) + marbled paper; 1-228; 238-1 (leaf 8 cancelled with no loss of text). Scribal catchwords in all signatures but the last.
• Layout: 2 columns of 37-38 lines.
• Decoration: fol. 1r, half-page quadripartite miniature of four tri-colored (red, white, and blue) quatrefoil frames enclosing (1) Lover sleeping; (2) Lover dressing; (3) Lover walking near stream; (4) Lover at portal of building; fol. 2r, Hainne (l. 139). Vilonnie; fol. 2v, Conuoitoise (l. 169). Auarice (l. 195); fol. 3r, Enuie (l. 235); fol. 3v, Tristesce (l. 291); fol. 4r, Viellesce (339); fol. 4v, Papelardie (l. 405). Pourete (l. 439); fol. 5v, Comment oiseuse parole alamant (l. 581); fol. 7r, La karole au dieu damours (l. 741); fol. 12r, Comment narcissus se mir / En la fontainne (l. 1479); fol. 13v, Comment le dieu damours / Trait alamant (l. 1691); fol. 22r, Ci deuise de raison. et de sa tres / bele facon et comment elle vient / por chastoier lamant et retraire de sa folie (l. 2967); fol. 27r, Comment paour et honte vient / A dangier qui se dormoit ou / vergier. Lamant parole (l. 3651); fol. 27v, Comment ialousie fist faire la tour / ou belacueil fu mis emprison. Lamant parole (l. 3779); fol. 29v, Ci commence li romans maistre / Iehan de meum(!) et le perfist tout / Iusques en la fin (l. 4029); fol. 36r, Comment fortune est qui est en sa / Roe les yex bendez et la tourne / Toute a sa volente (l. 4819); fol. 52v, Ci dit lamant comment amis / Reuient ali la ii foiz pour / li reconforter (l. 7199); fol. 67r, Comment li ialous bat sa fame (l. 9331); fol. 74v, Ci dit la comment abstinence ame/na faussamblant per la main de/uant le dieu damours (l. 10447); fol. 77v, Comment amors resoit faussamblant / et le fait Roy des ribauz de sa court (l. 10901); fol. 87r, Comment abstinence et / contrainte et faussamblant sont / venus a male bouche. Malebouche parole (l. 12121); fol. 88v, Ci dit laucteur / comment faussamblant confesse ma/lebouche et comment il li coupe la / langue a i rasoir (l. 12331); fol. 90r, Comment la vielle qui garde bel a/cueil li aporte le chapel que lamant li / enuoie par le conseil de faussamblant (l. 12525); fol.105r, Comment bel acueil est venus en contre / lamant et le mercie du chapel quil / li auoit enuoie par la vielle (l. 14741); fol. 108v, Ci commence la bataille de lost au dieu / damours contre les portes du chastel (l. 15273); fol. 113r, Ci deuise laucteur de nature qui est en sa forge, et de ses oeuures (l. 15863); fol. 118v, Ci commence la confession nature (l. 16699); fol. 137r, Ci commence genius son sermon (l. 19475); fol. 146r, Ci comme venus trait ou chastel .i. / brandon de feu por embraser ceulz / qui sont de denz (l. 20755); fol. 146v, Ci commence / lystoire de pymalion et de son ymage (l. 20788); fol. 149r, Ci comme pymalion trouua son ymage / tout vif. (l. 21121); fol. 149v, Ci comme / venus embrasa tout le chastel (l. 21221); fol. 154r, Half-page miniature, Trinity of Mercy Seat and Symbols of the Four Evangelists; in quadricolored (blue, red, white, and blue) quatrefoil, kneeling family of son, husband, wife, and daughter flanking Throne of Grace; in spandrels, four winged symbols with haloes and scrolls inscribed with names of the evangelists. In borders, rectilinear bars of ivy, inhabited by rabbits, birds, dog(?), squirrel with nut, and a butterfly.
• Origin: Paris, mid-14th century.

Binding note

French binding, gold-tooled brown calf over pasteboard, 18th century, probably by Nicolas Denis Derome le Jeune (1731-1790).

Rights and reproductions note

Apply for permission to publish.

Language note

Old French.

Script

Written in French Gothic book hand.

Contents

• 1. fols. 1r-153v: Roman de la rose.
• 2. fols. 153v-182r: Le testament.
• 3. fols. 182r-183r: Le codicille.

Provenance

Garrett MS. 126 was probably made for the family portrayed on fol. 154r. The earliest known owner is identified in an ex libris (17th century) in the lower margin of fol. 1r: "Ex dono nobilissimi D. D. Tullier de Masières utriusque juris Doctoris et Professoris primicerii." The Tullier de Masières (or Mazières) family were sieurs of Masières as well as jurists and public officials in Bourges, 15th to 18th centuries. The manuscript might have been donated to to the Collège Sainte-Marie, the Jesuit college at Bourges, remaining there until the French Revolution. The manuscript was later in the collection of L.M.J. Duriez of Lille, and was sold at his sale in Paris, 22 January 1828. According to De Ricci it was acquired at that sale by the Parisian bookseller Alphonse Labitte and by J. L. Bourdillon of Geneva (Catalogue, 1830, no. 101). In 1847, Bourdillon's collection was sold by the Parisian bookseller Victor Tilliard at a 6 April 1847 sale at the Maison Silvestre in Paris. According to Ernest Langlois, the manuscript was sold to the Parisian bookseller L. Potier [Antoine-Laurent Potier]. It was later in the collection of the Pierre-Adolphe du Cambout 1805-1873), Marquis de Coislin, and was lot 594 in the Coislin sale in Paris, beginning on 29 November 1847. The Parisian collector Antoine Bachelin-Deflorenne might have purchased the manuscript at that sale. Robert Garrett (1875-1961) of Baltimore, Maryland, Class of 1897, purchased the manuscript on 15 July 1925 from the London antiquarian bookseller Bernard Quaritch. Garrett's gift to the Princeton University Library, 1942. A commemorative bookplate is on the inside front cover.

Source acquisition

Gift of Robert Garrett, 1942.

Indexed in

For a full description of text and miniatures, see Don C. Skemer, Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Princeton University Library (Princeton, N.J., 2013), vol. 1, pp. 286-290; Index of Christian Art.

Cite as

Garrett MS. 126, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library.

Other format(s)

Also available in an electronic version.

Place name(s)

France, Paris.

Other standard number

• Garrett MS. 126

Statement on language in description

Princeton University Library aims to describe library materials in a manner that is respectful to the individuals and communities who create, use, and are represented in the collections we manage. Read more...