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.

    82/100 (page 76)
    illuminated chiefly in camaieu in the flnest style of French Art, vellum, in half red morocco case About 1480 1500 0 0 This truly admirable Chronicle by an anonymous Author, who concludes his History with the Peace of 1217 between Henry III of England and Philip-Augustus of Prance, must have been written after 1250, as towards the end, when describing the death of Richard Cceur de Lion and the enshrining of his heart at Rouen in a silver casket, he mentions incidentally that the silver was afterwards converted into money to form part of the ransom of Saint Louis. In Vols. XI and XIII of the Benedictine Collection of the Historiens des Gaules there are extracts from this manuscript, then in the possession of Charles Antoine de Bernard Marquis d’Avernes. After his death it was inherited by M. Vanquelin d’Ailly, whose autograph is on the vellum binding. Prom the arms emblazoned on folios 1 and 151 we learn that this superb manuscript was executed for Marshal Philippe de Crevecoeur [one of the characters in Sir Walter Scott’s Quentin Durward], who was honoured with the collar of the Toison d’Or in 1468, conquered Abbeville and Beauvais, was ^n'esent at the battles of Granson and Morat, and also at Nancy, where Charles the Bold was killed in 1476. Subsequently he entered the service of Louis XI, by whom he was highly esteemed, and who, when dying, strongly recommended Crevecoeur to his son Chardes VIII, as a man whom he should always retain near his person and employ in his wars. He became Marshal of France in 1483, Grand Chamberlain in 1492, and died in Lyons in 1494, whilst accompanying the King in his Voyage to Naples. Manuscripts of the Croniqucs de Normaudie more or less perfect are extremely rare, and only to be found in public libraries with the exception of the present copy. The value of this manuscript consists in the fact that it is more complete than any other now extant, and is enhanced by the exquisite beauty of its illuminations. The miniatures rank among the most beautiful specimens of Burgundian Art in the XVth century, and furnish precious details of Costume, Furniture, Architecture, Naval Construction, Arms, Armour, Religious Ceremonies, etc. The several hundred Initial Letters, each present an ornamental subject deliciously painted in Camaieu or in white on a coloured ground displaying real and fantastic animals, heraldry, flowers, contests, tournaments. Dance of Death, etc. The List of Knights who took part in the Conquest of England (folios 163-66) is more ample than usual, and is bordered with great ostentation, every line commencing with a beautifully painted initial letter having a diapered hyphen at the end. On the death of M. de Vauquelin in 1850 this magnificent Chronique de Normandie became the property of Ambroise Firmin Didot, who considered it the gem of his collection, and after the decease of that famous bibliophile was on the 15th of June, 1878, when sold by auction, purchased by a French firm for 53,000 francs, at which price, plus the commission, it passed into the hands of the late owner. A full account of this very valuable and important manuscript was printed at Bayeux in 1881 by the Comte de Toustain. 412 LES CRONICQUES DE NORMENDIE, sm. folio. First Edition, lettrcs gotl)iqutS, printed in double columns, slightly wormed but generally a fine copy in old calf, from the Buccleuch collection Rouen, Guillaume le Talleur, 1487 36 0 0 Eakissime. This copy wants the five leaves of Table, but it contains the eight EXTEA LEAVES (not merely six, as in the Sunderland copy). Of those extra leaves, six are placed between ff. Ixxxxvi and Ixxxxvii, with the signature nt Pt, and are headed “ Cy aprez ensuit vng petit traictie lequel parle de la guerre otinuee entre fraeois & eglois . . . iusqs a lanee . . mil quatre cens. xliiii.” The other two leaves have neither signature nor numeration, and are placed at the end of the book. They begin with the following heading : “ De la secode coqueste de bordeaulx & mort de talbot,” and occupy five columns of the two leaves, the remaining space of three columns being blank. These two leaves are not in the copy in the Biblioth^que Natibnale.