A catalogue of medieval literature, especially of the romances of chivalry, and books relating to the customs, costume, art, and pageantry of the middle ages.

  • Bernard Quaritch Ltd
Date:
1890
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A catalogue of medieval literature, especially of the romances of chivalry, and books relating to the customs, costume, art, and pageantry of the middle ages. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    60/100 (page 54)
    Lombards in 773, against Carl the Great, on behalf of the widow of Karlmann, the younger brother of the Frankish conqueror. Beaten and made prisoner, he transferred his fealty to Charlemagne, and became one of the Douze Fairs of romance. Around this historical personage, legends from many different sources grouped themselves and he became a hero of Fairyland. The Turpin Chronicle (about A.D. 1100) alludes to his wonderful deeds as renowned in ballads “sung to this very day.” In the prose-romance compiled in the fifteenth century he is associated with Morgen la F6e who takes him to Avalon.—The chess board incident is found in Ogier as well as in the Aymon ; but here the slayer is Chariot, the Emperor’s son, and the slain young Baudouin, Ogier’s son. 285 MEURVIN. The most famous and renowned Historie, of that woorthie and illustrious Knight Meruine, sonne to that rare and excellent Mirror of Princely prowesse, Oger the Dane ... by I. M. Gent, smallest 4to. black letter, fine copy in red morocco B. Blower and Val. Sims, 1612 14 0 A late continuation of the story of Ogier. 286 MILLES AND AMIS. La tres ioyense plaisante & recreatine hystoire des faitz gestes trihphes & prouesses des tres preux & vaillans chenaliers Milles & Amys. Et de leurs enfas, cestassanoir Anceanlme & Elorisset, sm. 4to. lettres gotlitques, 150 leaves, loith signatures J.-/S in eights, and T in six leaves, printed in long lines, thirty-five per page, woodcuts, red morocco extra, lined with blue morocco, by Lortic, very fine and large copy from the Bidot collection Lyon sur le Bosne par Oliuier Arnoullet . . . 1553 90 0 The first edition of this pretty romance was printed in 1603. iBmilius and his Amicus were slain at a battle fought by Charlemagne against the Lombards, in 773. They were canonised as saints. In the story they fall by the hand of Ogier, who was then on the Lombard side. The story was a saintly legend in Latin in the tenth century; in the thirteenth, it was composed in French verse and various dramatis personce of the Carolingian cycle introduced into it; still further amplifications were made when it was compiled as a prose romance in the fifteenth century. 287 GERARD D’EUPHRATE. Le premier liure de I’histoire & ancienne croniqve de Gerard d’Evphrate, Due de Bovrgongne . . Mis de nouneau en nostre vnlgaire Erancoys, sm. folio, numerous elegant wood- cuts and graceful initials, by Oeoffroy Tory; in the original calf Baris, Estienne Groulleau, pour luy, Ian Longis, Vincent Sertenas, 1549 14 10 Only one of the'woodcuts bears Geoffrey Tory’s mark ; but his work is visible in most of them, and the initials are undeniably his. According to M. Didot the large engravings were the work of Jean Cousin, and the initials of Denis Janot. Gerard de Fratte (who was the son of Doolin of Mayence, and who succeeded Gerard de Koussillon in the Dukedom of Burgundy) was one of the foes of Charles the Great. In this volume, containing only the first part of the story (—no more was published) the text was modified in imitation of the Amadis. It was derived from an early Chanson de geste. 288 HUON DE BORDEAUX. Les gestes et patctz meeueilleux du noble Huon de Bordeaulx Per de Erance, Due de Guyenne. Nounellement redige en bon Erancoys: . . small 4to. gatl)tc letter, with woodcut on title and others in text, a few letters in the headlines of the Table and the headline of the last leaf restored, a clean copy (186 X 127 millimetres), blue morocco super-extra, gilt marbled edges, by Trautz-Bauzonnet, from the Bidot collection, very eaeb Paris, Jean Bonfons [about 1530] 20 0 289 the same, small 4to. a very fine and large copy (201 x 139 millim.'), red morocco super-extra, gilt marbled edges, by Trautz-Bauzonnet [about 1530] 30 0 The earliest known edition is that printed by Michel Lenoir in 1516. All the impressions of this interesting romance are now very rare. It is supposed that Huon de Villeneuve, about the end of the thirteenth century, wrote the poem from which, in the middle of the fourteenth, the prose romance was compiled. The earliest traces of the story are found in the Heldenbuch ; the name of Otnit having grown into Huon, and that of Elberich into Auberon or Oberon—the dwarf who re-appears as King of the Fairies in the Midsummer Night’s Dream. In romance, Huon is one of the Paladins of Charlemagne. 0 0 0 0 0