Medieval Manuscripts in Cambridge Libraries: Cambridge, University Library, MS Gg.4.6

Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun, Le Roman de la Rose

Introduction: The Roman de la Rose was one of the most important and influential literary works written in medieval French. It survives in approximately 320 manuscripts and fragments made between the 13th and the 16th centuries. It is the work of two authors. The first 4000 or so lines were written by Guillaume de Lorris in the 1220s or 1230s; at some point between 1269 and 1278, Jean de Meun composed a continuation, adding more than 17,000 lines to the poem, including an account of the text's origins and evolution. The poem takes the form of an allegorical dream vision in which the Lover relates his journey into a walled garden and his quest for the beloved Rose. Into this standard courtly literature frame, Jean de Meun incorporated numerous commentaries and digressions on a variety of topics ranging from astrology and philosophy to optics, and employed a version of the learned disputation (common to university study at the time) between its various characters. His resolution of the tale further undercuts Guillaume de Lorris's idealised description of the conventions of the art of courtly love, with the protagonist achieving the supposedly unattainable Rose through deception and trickery. The Roman de la Rose was both popular and controversial for several centuries and its influence is evident in the writings of other major medieval poets including Petrarch, Dante and Chaucer. In common with many of the surviving manuscript copies, MS Gg.4.6 is illustrated with a cycle of miniatures, many of which are portraits of the allegorical figures who feature in the narrative. The artist of these miniatures has been identified by Richard and Mary Rouse and Marie-Thérèse Gousset as Richard de Montbaston (fl. 1325-1353), a professional illustrator who lived and worked with his wife Jeanne (fl. 1338-1353) on the rue Neuve Notre-Dame in Paris. According to their work, they were responsible for the illustration of as many as eighteen of the extant Rose manuscripts (including this one), out of a total of 53 manuscripts or fragments in which one or both of their hands have been identified. Given the (often richly) illuminated form of many of the surviving copies of the Rose, as well as continued literary interest in the text, more than 130 manuscripts have been digitised. These are available to view online via the Roman de la Rose Digital Library, a joint project of the Sheridan Libraries of John Hopkins University and the Bibliothèque nationale de France, which also provides a summary of the text, a list of known extant manuscripts, information concerning their contents, decorative schemes and provenance, and other resources in support of the text's study. This copy of the Roman de la Rose has featured in two recent exhibitions: The moving word: French medieval manuscripts in Cambridge , an online exhibition that explored how knowledge travelled in written form around Europe and the Mediterrean between 1150 and 1350 (2014); and the Cambridge Illuminations exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum (2005), which surveyed manuscript production and culture in Europe from the 6th to the 16th centuries. Dr James Freeman |Medieval Manuscripts Specialist |Cambridge University Library

3r-139r

Le Roman de la Rose

Language(s): Old French

Guillaume de Lorris; Jean de Meun

Incipit: 3r: Maintes gens dient qu'en songes / va se fables non et menconges

Explicit: 139r: Ainsi oi la rose vermaille / A tant fu iour et ge m'esuaille

The section of the text composed by Guillaume de Lorris ends and that by Jean de Meun begins on f. 30r.

Mary Rouse (2007) notes that on f. 108v, an incorrect display initial renders 'Genius' as 'Venius' (probably a conflation with Venus). Rouse also observes that on f. 47v, verses 6729-6741 are repeated after verse 6771 while verses 6772-6870 are omitted.

Langlois (1914-24)

Physical Description

Secundo Folio: 4r: La matinee

Form: codex

Support: Parchment (FHHF).

Extent: Codex: iv + 2 + 137 + 2 + iv leaves. Folios 1 and 142 were formerly pastedowns; now lifted. 320 × 230 mm.

Foliation:

20th-century foliation

i-iv + 1-2 + 3-139 + 141-142 + v-viii

Written in pencil in the upper right-hand corner of the rectos by an unidentified hand of the 20th century (with a few additions by H.L. Pink (see ff. 141-142). Folio number 140 assigned to a leaf no longer present in the volume (as per historic foliation practice at Cambridge University Library).

Foliation:

19th-century foliation

1-137 (for ff. 3-139)

Written in pencil in the lower right-hand corner of the rectos at intervals of ten leaves (10, 20, etc), by an unknown hand of 19th century. This sequence was followed by the catalogue published in 1858 (see Bibliography) but has now been superseded by the above.

Collation

Quires 1-17⁸ (ff. 3-138)
Quire 18^2-1 (f. 139: 2nd leaf, after f. 139, excised, probably blank)

Quires 1-17⁸ 18^2-1 (2nd excised)

Bifolium signatures rarely visible (see Quires 2 and 16).

No quire signatures.

Catchwords present, occasionally trimmed, and one corrected (f. 58v).

Layout

235-245 × 160-165 mm. Ruled in leadpoint, frame and line, in two columns. 40 lines to the page, written below top line. (The measurement for written space is taken from the ruling. Since the text is written in verse, the lines are rarely filled to their full width).

Hand(s)

Written in littera textualis by a single scribe.

Decoration

The decoration has been identified as the work of a single artist, Richard de Montbaston (fl. 1325-1353) (see Rouse and Rouse (2000), vol. 2, p. 203).

Miniatures, all within blue and/or red frames diapered in white and edged in burnished gold.

1/3-page miniature:

3r: Lover's dream, rosebush behind; he sews his sleeve; he stands before vices painted on garden's wall

Smaller, column miniatures, 8-13 lines in size, on burnished gold or patterned ground:

4r: Hate, Cruelty, Covetousness (4)
4v: Avarice
5r: Envy, Sorrow
5v: Old Age
6r: Hypocrisy
6v: Poverty
7v: Idleness leads Lover into garden
9r: Pleasure
13r: Narcissus
14r: Lover looks into spring of Narcissus
14v: God of Love shoots arrow at Lover
16r: Love captures Lover
16v: Lover becomes Love’s liegeman
22r: Lover, Evil Tongue and Rebuff
23r: Reason descends from Tower to Lover
24r: Lover speaks to Rebuff
25r: Magnanimity speaks to Rebuff
27v: Fear and Shame rouse Rebuff
30r: Jean de Meun as author
49v: Lover and Friend
69v: God of Love addresses his barons
80v: False Seeming and Constrained Abstinence approach Evil Tongue as pilgrims
100r: Magnanimity speaks to Rebuff

Ornamental and minor initials:

3r: Eight-line rose initial on blue background filled with oak leaf scrolls on burnished gold ground
Burnished gold initials, 2-4 lines in size, on blue and pink ground diapered in white

Border decoration:

3r: Full frame of gold, blue and red bars and branches, decorated with ivy leaves in gold and colour, with trees and a mask, a rabbit and a hound in lower margin
Gold ivy leaves extend into margins from smaller miniatures

Section and character rubrics throughout the text. Prompts for rubrics are frequently visible in the margins, though were not invariably completed (see, for example, f. 27v).

Additions

A marginal annotation in plummet by a medieval hand on f. 25r.

An inscription, evidently by a medieval hand, but since erased and now illegible on f. 141r.

Pen trials, including possible names (?'Rutherskth' and another in an apparent cipher), on f. 142r.

Folio numbers (following the 19th-century foliation sequence) written into Quire 4 by Henry Bradshaw (1831-1886) , University Librarian 1867-1886, suggesting that these leaves were formerly bound out of their correct order. The presence of signes-de-renvoi at the end and beginning of leaves that should have been adjacent indicates that the misbinding occurred at an early, apparently medieval juncture. A further note by Bradshaw on f. 92r (formerly f. 90) - 'Leaves 90 + 91 should be cut out and transposed' - draws attention to the fact that the text has been copied out of order. The correct sequence should be: ff. 91v, 93r, 93v, 92r, 92v, 94r. The text proceeds correctly for the rest of the quire, confirming that the error has arisen not as a result of the second bifolium having been bound after the third.

A further note by Henry Bradshaw (1831-1886) on f. 30r: 'This is the end of the part written by William de Lorris'.

Quire signatures added to the first leaf of each quire, and '+' to the first leaf of the second half of the quire, by H.L. Pink .

Binding

Full calf binding with three rectangular frames and four decorative fleurons tooled in gold (17th century). Rebacked by J.P. Gray and Son of Cambridge, 1959.

History

Origin: Second quarter of the 14th century, probably c. 1330-1340. ; Paris.

Rouse and Rouse (2000), vol. 2, pp. 202-06

Provenance and Acquisition

'Ric. Smythei liber' (f. 2r) and 'R. Smithe' (f. 7v): ownership inscriptions of Richard Smith (fl. 16th century) Smith, Richard, fl. 16th century , as yet unidentified.

'Robert Smith his booke' (f. 113v: ownership inscription of Robert Smith (fl. 16th/17th centuries) , as yet unidentified but perhaps related (?son) to Richard Smith (see above).

'John dygby' (f. 7v): possible ownership inscription of John Dygby (fl. 16th/17th centuries) , as yet unidentified.

'Richard Beltham is his book witnes John harris and' (f. 94v: possible ownership inscription of Richard Beltham (fl. 17th century) , as yet unidentified.

'29' written inside a circle (adjacent to another number, similarly inscribed but subsequently crossed out): perhaps a pressmark, as yet unidentified.

John Moore (1646-1714), bishop of Ely : no. 834 (front pastedown) in the handwritten supplementary list of Moore's manuscripts, now MS Oo.7.50(2), compiled by Thomas Tanner (1674-1735) after the publication of Bernard, Catalogi librorum manuscriptorum Angliæ et Hiberniæ (c. 1697).

Presented to the University Library in 1715 by George I : donation bookplate engraved by John Pine in 1736 on the front pastedown.

Additional Information

Record Sources

This catalogue entry draws on an unpublished description of the manuscript composed between 1926 and 1930 by M.R. James , now held in the University Archives (UA ULIB 7/3/74), and the description provided by Paul Binski and Patrick Zutshi, with the collaboration of Stella Panayotova, Western Illuminated Manuscripts: A Catalogue of the Collection in Cambridge University Library (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011) (used here by kind permission of Cambridge University Press).

Availability

Entry to read in the Library is permitted only on presentation of a valid reader's card. For information on eligibility and admissions procedures, see Joining the Library). For further enquiries, and to confirm the availability of the manuscript, please contact the Special Collections Reading Room.

Bibliography

A catalogue of the manuscripts preserved in the library of the University of Cambridge, (Cambridge, 3: Gg-Kk, Cambridge University Press, 1858)

Les manuscrits français de Cambridge. II. Bibliothèque de l'université Romania, Meyer, Paul (15, 237-357, 1886, https://www.jstor.org/stable/45042111)

Les manuscrits du <hi rend="italics">Roman de la Rose</hi>: description et classement Travaux et mémoires de l'Université de Lille. Nouvelle série I, Droit, lettres, Langlois, Ernest (Lille, Tallandier, 1910)

Die Illustration des Rosenromans Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des Allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses, Kuhn, Alfred (31, 1-66, 1913, http://www.digizeitschriften.de/dms/img/?PPN=urn%3Anbn%3Ade%3Absz%3A16-diglit-61786&DMDID=dmd00015)

Le <hi rend="italics">Roman de la rose</hi>, par Guillaume de Lorris et Jean de Meun, publié après les manuscrits Publications de la Société des anciens textes français, (Paris, Firmin Didot; Champion, 1914-24)

Le <hi rend="italics">Roman de la Rose</hi> de la Bibliothèque de la ville de Tournai Scriptorium: Revue internationale des études relatives aux manuscrits / International Review of Manuscript Studies, Fourez, Lucien (1, 213-239, 1946)

The <hi rend="italics">Roman de la Rose</hi>: a study in allegory and iconography, Fleming, John V. (Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press, 1969)

Direct and indirect speech in pictures Zeitschrift für Semiotik, Ringbom, Sixten (14, 29-40, 1992)

Aux sources du <hi rend="italics">Roman de la Rose</hi> Medieval Codicology, Iconography, Literature, and Translation: Studies for Keith Val Sinclair Litterae textuales, Braet, Herman (Leiden, 110-119, Brill, 1994)

Narcisse et Pygmalion: mythe et intertexte dans le <hi rend="italics">Roman de la Rose</hi> Mediaeval Antiquity Mediaevalia Lovaniensia Series I, Braet, Herman (Leuven, 237-254, Leuven University Press, 1995)

Manuscripts and their makers: commercial book producers in medieval Paris, 1200-1500, Rouse, Richard H.Rouse, Mary A. (Turnhout, 2, Harvey Miller, 2000)

The <hi rend="italics">Romance of the rose</hi> illuminated: manuscripts at the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth Medieval and Renaissance texts and studies, Blamires, AlcuinHolian, Gail C. (Tempe, 223, ACMRS (Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies), 2002)

The Cambridge Illuminations: Ten Centuries of Book Production in the Medieval West, (London, Harvey Miller, 2005)

The <hi rend="italics">Roman de la Rose</hi> manuscript in Duesseldorf De la Rose: texte, image, fortune Synthema, Weyer, Gregor (Leuven, 117-140, Peeters, 2006)

Du portrait d'auteur dans le <hi rend="italics">Roman de la Rose</hi> Medieval Manuscripts in Transition: Tradition and Creative Recycling Mediaevalia Lovaniensia Series I, Braet, Herman (Leuven, 81-99, Leuven University Press, 2006)

Keeping up appearances: the Cambridge <hi rend="italics">Roman de la rose</hi> and its associates The Cambridge illuminations: the conference papers, Rouse, Mary A. (London, 151-157, Harvey Miller, 2007)

The medieval imagination: illuminated manuscripts from Cambridge, Australia and New Zealand, Stocks, BronwynMorgan, Nigel J. (Victoria, Macmillan Art, 2008)

Le <hi rend="italics">Roman de la Rose</hi>: Cambridge, University Library, MS Gg.4.6 Imagination, books & community in medieval Europe: papers of a conference held at the State Library of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia, 29-31 May, 2008, in conjunction with an exhibition 'The Medieval Imagination', 28 March-15 June 2008, Fox, Jan (South Yarra, Vic.; Melbourne, Vic., 197-203, Macmillan; State Library of Victoria, 2009)

Reading the medieval book in an exhibition Imagination, books & community in medieval Europe: papers of a conference held at the State Library of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia, 29-31 May, 2008, in conjunction with an exhibition 'The Medieval Imagination', 28 March-15 June 2008, Manion, Margaret (South Yarra, Vic.; Melbourne, Vic., 13-49, Macmillan; State Library of Victoria, 2009)

Western illuminated manuscripts: a catalogue of the collection in Cambridge University Library, Binski, PaulZutshi, Patrick (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2011, https://doi-org.ezp.lib.cam.ac.uk/10.1017/CBO9780511780479)

Digital Images

Cambridge Digital Library

Abbreviations

View list of abbreviations and editorial conventions.

Medieval Manuscripts in Cambridge Libraries

Cambridge, University Library, MS Gg.4.6

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