Le manuscrit médiéval ~ The Medieval Manuscript

Au catalogue de cette vente signalons deux Livres d'heures, le premier (lot 15) à l'usage de Paris, Paris ca 1415 ; le second (lot 16) de l'école de Rouen (ca 1490/1510), et (lot 17) le magnifique Livre de prières d'Andrée de Vivonne, duchesse de la Rochefoucauld (ca 1650) avec fermoir or en forme d'hermine, émaillé, représentant Marie-Madeleine au pied de la croix.

Catalogue en ligne sur le site Bibliorare [ - lien - ]

Mardi 10 novembre 2009 Drouot Richelieu. Christophe Lucien.
Lot 8 : PSAUTIER à l’usage des Célestins. Manuscrit de la seconde moitié du XVe siècle en un volume petit in-8° de 190 f. de parchemin (100 x 139 mm), sans reliure. illustré de quatre grandes lettrines ornées.
ƒ. 1 à 12 v : calendrier
ƒ. 13 à 180 : psautier férial contenant l’ordinaire de l’office, suivi des cantiques bibliques et des litanies des saints (dont saint Onufre, saint Pierre célestin…)
ƒ. 180 à 190 : office des morts à l’usage des célestins (« Sequitur officium mortuorum secundum usum ordinis celestinorum »)
Décoration
20 lettrines fleuries peintes en rouge et bleu sur fond d’or, dont quatre grandes (ƒ. 13, 58v, 69v, 120). Texte : 21 lignes ; écriture bâtarde.
Origine :
Le calendrier est typiquement célestin et, comme la liturgie de l’ordre, n’a pas subi d’influence locale. Dans les litanies, on relève saint Onufre parmi les ermites et les moines, assez rare en France, et saint Pierre célestin, confesseur, patron de l’ordre des Célestins.
Au calendrier : sainte Austreberte, abbesse (7 février), saint Savin, évêque d’Agaume et confesseur (8 février),  la translation de saint Pierre célestin, confesseur (15 février),  saint Barbat, évêque de Bénévent et confesseur (18 février), saint Romain, abbé (27 février),  saint Pierre, confesseur (19 mai),  l’octave de saint Pierre, confesseur (26 mai), la transfiguration de Notre Seigneur (6 août),  saint François, confesseur (4 octobre),  sainte Réparate, vierge et martyre (8 octobre) &  la Dedicacio ecclesie duplex maior dans l’ordre des Célestins (10 octobre).

Lundi 23 novembre 2009, Hôtel du Louvre, Salle Rohan, Bibliothèque du vicomte Couppel du Lude
Lot 12. HEURES À L’USAGE DE PARIS. – Paris, Cercle de maître François, vers 1470 (puis v. 1510). Parchemin. 166 ff. 134 x 90 mm (justification : 82 x 50 mm). 20 longues lignes par page.
Lot 13. HEURES SELON L’USAGE DE CHARTRES. – Chartres, fin XVe siècle. Parchemin. 165 ff., 202 x 138 mm (justification : 112 x 72 mm). 17 longues lignes par page. Provenance : Armes peintes : De gueules au lion d’argent tenant un croissant de même (dans la bordure du f. 38v).
• Catherine Jubin, de Brou (Eure-et-Loire), troisième quart du XVIe siècle (?) : « Ces presentes heures appartiens a Caterinne Jubin de Bray, fille de … » (f. A). – « Catherine Jubin de Brou / Jehan Jubin » (f. A). – « Caterine Jubin » (contreplat sup.). – « Catherine Jubin / M. Bray » (f. Bv). – Prière à la « Mère du Rédempteur » signée : « Bray / C. Jubin / 1576 » (f. Bv).
• Famille de Malezieu (à partir de 1576) : « Ces presentes heures appartiennent a Michel de Malzieu, escuyer, sieur de Bray. Ceux qui les trouveront les luy rendent et se payra bien, le jour de saint Lubin [= 14 mars] l’annee mil cinq cent septante et six. [Signé :] Michel de Malezieu. » (f. Bv). – « Ce livre appartient a moy Nicolas de Malzieu. 1661 » (f. A).
Lot 14. HEURES À L’USAGE DE ROUEN. Hore intemerata Virginis Marie secundum usum rothomagense. Paris, Thielman Kerver, 28 avril 1501. In-8, maroquin rouge, encadrement mosaïqué de maroquin Lavallière orné d’un treillage doré meublé de fleurettes, dos orné de pièces mosaïquées du même maroquin de forme carrée portant une fleurette dorée, ou circulaire portant une roue à rayons courbes, doublure de maroquin vert ornée d’une dentelle dorée droite, fermoirs en métal, tranches dorées (Reliure du XVIIIe siècle). Imprimé par Regnault à Caen, en rouge et noir, et en caractères gothiques, ce livre d’Heures est abondamment illustré : il est orné de la marque de Kerver sur le premier feuillet, de nombreux encadrements historiés ou grotesques sur fond criblé, et de 17 grands bois gravés. Calendrier en rouge et noir. Lacombe, n° 103 – Bohatta, n° 1333.
Lot 15. HEURES À L’USAGE DE ROUEN. Ces presentes heures a lusaige de Rouan au long sans requerir : avec les miracles nostre dame et les figures de lapocalipse & de la bible & des triu(m)phes de Cesar, et plusieurs aultres hystoires faictes a lantique, ont este imprimees pour Symon Vostre Libraire : demourant a Paris. S.d. [1508]. In-4, veau fauve, encadrement de filets à froid, large roulette aux entrelacs dorés encadrant les plats, importante plaque composée de filets et rinceaux à la cire blanche, noire et verte s’entrecroisant dessinant un motif losangé de style oriental avec fleurons azurés et pointillé sur le champ, dos lisse orné d’une large roulette dorée, tranches dorées (Reliure de l’époque). Bohatta, n° 1343 – Lacombe, n° 181
Lot 16. HEURES À L’USAGE DE ROME. A la louenge de dieu & de la tressaincte & glorieuse vierge Marie et a ledification de tous bo(n)s catholiques ont este commencees ces presentes heures a lusaige de Romme… Imprimées à Paris par Gillet Hardouyn libraire demourant au bout du po(n)t nostre Dame deva(n)t sainct Denis de la chartre a lenseigne de la Rose. [Vers 1509]. In-8, maroquin noir, roulette feuillagée entourée d’un double filet en encadrement, important décor doré dessinant un rectangle cintré aux angles et un losange s’entrecroisant, larges fleurons aux angles, et au centre composé de différents fers, dont deux azurés, rinceaux de filets et petits fers, fers aldins sur les bords, dos orné de caissons à froid et petit fer doré, tranches dorées (Reliure de l’époque). Relié par JEAN PICARD, libraire et relieur parisien actif vers 1539/1547. Bohatta, n° 896 – Brunet, Heures, n° 232 – Lacombe, n° 189.
Catalogue en ligne sur le site de Bibliorare

Le 28 avril se déroule à Saint-Brieuc (Guichard / Juillan) une vente de livres et de documents historiques dont certains d'un grand intérêt pour l'Histoire bretonne.
Dans les archives dispersées signalons par exemple les nn:
56. Affaire de saint-Paul / du Bois de la Motte. 1453. Enquête de la cour de Rennes pour le sieur du Bouays-La Motte vers le sieur de Sainct-Pou(l) touchant les prééminences de la paroisse de Plouer. 2 documents.
1455 et 1457. Enquête de la cour de Rennes sur le même sujet. 4 documents. Rédigé par un officier de justice de Beaulieu.
96. Du Garzpern de Kergroix, en Plougonven. Généalogie manuscrite sur papier. 35 x 45 cm, établie depuis Guyon du Garzpern avec leurs alliances avec les familles de Coëtquis, de Lesormel, de la Tour, Jourdain de Kermerzit, de Kermeno, Le Gonidec, du Groesquer, de Gennes. Arrêt de noblesse de messieurs du Garzpern. 52 p. in-40 datée de 1669.
103. Ensemble de pièces (depuis 1509) concernant la famille Le Court de la Villethassetz, Manoir de la Rougerais en Trigavou. Rassemblé par Frédéric Le Court de la Villethassetz, procureur du roi à Fougères et auteur de L'Alexandriade.
108. Mandement de François II, duc de Bretagne "pour faire payer Guillaume de Beaumanoir seigneur du bois de la Motte" une rente "luy due par le domaine de Dinan" 22 juin 1463.
109. Mandement du duc de Bretagne. sur le même sujet. 1485. Concerne Ysabeau de Malestroit, veuve de Guillaume de Beaumanoir. Du secrétaire Jacques Bouchart, frère de l'historien.

Voir le catalogue en ligne sur le site Bibliorare.

Bloomsbury Auctions, Inc., New York présente à la vente (sur Ebay) plusieurs précieux manuscrits, dont un exemplari, origine France, copié par un Karolus. Il s'agit peut-être de Charles, copiste cité par R. H. Rouse & M. A. Rouse, Manuscripts and their makers, II, p. 21, comme étant censitaire en 1285 de Saint-Merri. J'ai moi-même lu ce nom dans le Paris AN S 1626/1 qui est un censier de l'abbaye Sainte-Geneviève, daté de 1276: Karolus scriptor (in bordellis) 
Les exemplaria servaient de modèle aux copistes et étaient loués pièce par pièce.


 
Descriptions d'après notices en ligne
[Lot 3B] ARISTOTLE. [Organon.] Composite manuscript on vellum, containing: PORPHYRY. Isagoge; ARISTOTLE. Categoriae, Liber peri hermenias [De interpretatione]; BOETHIUS, Anicius Manlius Severinus. Liber de divisione, De differentiis topicis; ARISTOTLE. Liber topicorum, De sophisticis elenchi, Priora analytica, Posterioria analytica, in Latin. France: mid- and late 12th century and early 13th century]. Decorated manuscript on vellum. 173 ff., complete. Collation: 114 2-68; 7-108 116 125 (of 6, f. 12/1 blank removed); 13-146 158; 16-198; 20-228. Detailed contents: Porphyry, Isagoge ff.1-4 and 11-14v (ff. 5-10v a second copy inserted in the middle of the first gathering); Aristotle, Categoriae ff. 14v-25v; Aristotle, Liber Peri hermenias ff. 25v-31v; Boethius, Liber de divisione ff. 31v-38v; Boethius, De differentiis topicis, books I-III, ff. 38v-53v; Boethius, De syllogismus categoricis, opening sections only, ff. 53v-54v; Aristotle, Liber topicorum ff. 55-97 [a blank leaf, the pair to ff.55, has been removed from the end of this section but there is no gap in either this text or the following]; Aristotle, De sophisticis elenchis ff. 98-117v; Aristotle, Priora analytica, in the Chartres recension ff. 118-149v; Aristotle, Posteriora analytica ff. 150-172v; notes on humors and brief quotations, additions in a 15th-century hand, ff.172v-173v. Six discrete text blocks (200 x 135 mm. and smaller), each ruled in a different pattern of between 29 and 38 lines, written in dark brown or black ink in different small proto-gothic or gothic bookhands. Opening initials of pale red or brown and red, diagrams in text on ff.132v and 138 and in margin of f.3, extensive marginalia in various hands, ranging from detailed explanatory text and diagrams to informal marginal sketches. Modern blindstamped calf over 15th-century bevelled wooden boards, 15th-century French manuscript deed on vellum (written on recto of a folded folio leaf), formerly used as pastedown, at end. Condition: a few wormholes in first leaves, rubbed or stained with some loss to text of ff. 1 and 2, f.106 with repair crossing text, vellum repairs to lower corner of f. 11, outer margin of f. 74 and lower margin of f. 91. Provenance: The individual text blocks are all in French hands, and several of the annotations are in French, providing evidence that the collected manuscript remained in France. Many of the marginalia are seim-effaced A few are dated to the mid-13th century (1240 and 1269). Some of the annotations are unrelated to the text, transcribing for example, the opening of a letter, or recording the receipt of a mattress, but one note, on f. 117v, records payment to a scribe and may relate to the manuscript's production (Mag[ist]ri karoli scriptoris p[ro] exemplari. ii sol[idi]) (1). -- The manuscript deed that was used as a pastedown, dated 1407 and relating to a marriage settlement of Johanette, daughter of Jehan, living at "Poulorgny," suggests that the manuscript was still in France when it was rebound in the fifteenth century. -- Count Oswald Seilern (1901-1967, booklabel, sale Christies London, 26 March 2003, lot 3). A remarkable composite manuscript, consisting of a compendium of discretely produced manuscripts, originally from more than one codex, that were assembled in the 13th century to provide the entire corpus of works that make up the Aristotelian Organon ("The Instrument"). Organon was the name given by his followers to Aristotle's six works on philosophical logic, accompanied by Porphyry's introduction (Isagoge) and the commentaries by Boethius, through whose Latin translation the works were rediscovered and disseminated throughout medieval Europe. This corpus became the basis for the study of logic and the determining influence on scholastic thought. the assemblage of all of these texts in this thirteenth-century volume provides valuable evidence of the revival of interest in and circulation of the fundamental texts of Antiquity during the in the 12th and 13th centuries. The composite nature of the manuscript mirrors the incremental rediscovery of the Aristotelian corpus during the "Renaissance of the twelfth century": the first section contains the works subsequently known as the logica vetus, written in a particularly fine and elegant hand, apparently in southern France in the middle of the 12th century. The quality of the penmanship in this section may have been the inspired the addition of the other texts and possibly ensured the preservation of the volume as a whole. The remaining texts contain the other logical texts of Aristotle, which became known as the logica nova, as they were only recovered in the course of the 12th century. It is not clear whether these other texts were added in a single campaign at a later date, although this seems unlikely, but it is evident that some attempt was made to give them a more uniform look by the addition of the pink-red initials and occasional paragraph marks. The annotations and marginalia attest to the manuscript's extensive use by various readers from the 13th century and later. Precise clues as to provenance are scarce, most names being illegible or incomplete. The notes include erudite explanatory text and logical diagrams, including one, in a 13th-century hand, which schematically depicts Porphyry's questions on the status of "universals" (the problem that brought forth scholasticism), as well as frivolous sketches: at the foot of f.51v is a labeled sketch of a physician holding a urine bottle, and in the outer margin of f.109 a knight astride his horse. Medieval Aristotle manuscripts of this quality and early date appear rarely on the market.
  

Lot 16b: North Italy, Lombardy?: early 16th century

An abbacus manuscript, in Italian. Decorated manuscript on vellum. [Italy], 1419. Signed and dated by the scribe, Joh[ann]es de Strasburg, 18 April 1419. 47 leaves: [19 2-48 56 68]. Possibly incomplete at beginning. Written in brown ink in a small upright cursive, single column, up to 51 lines (variable), section headings and paragraph marks in red, marginal initial capitals and table headings with red capital strokes. Catchwords in center of lower margins on final versos. Ten pages with geometrical diagrams (circles and triangles). Signed and dated at end "facto e chompiuto adi 18 April 1419 / [in red] Qui scripsit scribat et sember cu[m] d[o]m[i]ni vivat / Amen solamen Steyg der blin uff den lamen / Joh[ann]es de Strasburg". Modern black goatskin. Condition: First leaf wrinkled and with large stain obscuring one to two words each from 7 lines on recto, occasional small stains Provenance: "Piero (?)Strozzo," contemporary ownership inscription at end (of a member of the Florentine banking family?); several illegible or partly eradicated early inscriptions on final verso. -- Later manuscript notes with geometrical diagrams on 5 leaves at end. a very fine example of a "trattato dell' abbaco" or italian pedagogic manual of commercial mathematics, accounting and geometry. Beginning in the thirteenth century the rise of international trade and banking companies in the Italian city-states prompted the formation of vernacular schools in which commercial mathematics, accounting and writing were taught to sons of the merchant class. This was a radical departure from the humanist educational curriculum, which, if it included mathematics at all, was limited to classical or medieval Latin mathematics - algorisms for determining moveable feast days in the church calendar, or Euclidean geometry. Known as abbaco, this practical course of mathematics was recorded and transmitted in manuscript books, of which several hundred are known to survive, all in Italian, and the vast majority in institutional collections. Long thought to be abbreviated vernacular versions of the Latin Liber abbaci of the 13th-century mathematician Leonardo Fibonacci, an encyclopaedia of practical mathematics, these abbaco manuscripts, of which the earliest dated example is from 1290, may in fact derive from a more widespread culture of commercial mathematics, already known by Fibonacci, and probably flourishing in Provence and/or Catalonia before reaching Italy. From the fourteenth to the sixteenth century so-called abbaco schools flourished throughout northern Italy, in different forms, with the Florentine version being a separate two-year course of study administered to boys aged 11 to 14, while other towns integrated the abbaco teaching into the vernacular schools. The present manuscript opens with problems of addition, multiplication, and division, including fractions. ("Abbaco books. did not usually explain addition and subtraction, probably leaving this to the teacher to do" - Grendler, p. 313). It proceeds quickly to "the heart of abbaco. solving the mathematical problems of business. The ordinary abbaco book might contain four hundred problems and their solutions, of which the largest group by far were business problems (op. cit., p. 314). This manuscript is no exception. The many problems, most presented in a literary, story-telling form that is typical of the genre, relate to commercial arrangements, payment of merchandise, commercial partnerships, measurements and weights, money exchange, etc. Several schematic tables show how to calculate distances; others show different accounting methods or methods of calculating interest. A few other problems are of the "recreational" sort described by Grendler, designed to exercise purely mathematical skills. The final section, illustrated with neat diagrams, is devoted to practical geometry. Like all abbaco manuscripts, this one contains a trove of information on late medieval Italian commercial practices. The fact that the manuscript is signed and dated adds to its interest and documentary value. The concluding jingle of the scribe Johann from Strassburg is written in an unusual mixture of Italian and German. Written in the lower margins in a seventeenth- or eighteenth-century Italian hand, the later notes testify to the manuscript's continued use two or three centuries after its production. Abbaco manuscripts appear very rarely on the market. Cf. Paul F. Grendler, Schooling in Renaissance Italy (Baltimore & London 1989), chapter 11, "Learning Merchant Skills"; Warren Van Egmond, Practical Mathematics in the Italian Renaissance: a Catalog of Italian Abbacus Manuscripts and Printed Books to 1600 (Florence 1981). Cf. Paul F. Grendler, Schooling in Renaissance Italy (Baltimore & London 1989), chapter 11, "Learning Merchant Skills"; Warren Van Egmond, Practical Mathematics in the Italian Renaissance: a Catalog of Italian Abbacus Manuscripts and Printed Books to 1600 (Florence 1981).

ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT LEAVES , France,15th Century. Three leaves from a noted Missal , in Latin, on vellum. [France, ? Britanny, c. 1430s]. each (310 x 230 mm). Double column, 30 lines in black ink in an upright gothic bookhand between 4 verticals and 31 horizontals ruled in grey, one leaf with respectively 9 and 10 lines of musical notation on verso, in square neumes on four-line red staves. Rubricated in red, one heading in gold. Guide letters for rubrics in margins. Numerous illuminated initials in various sizes: three large initials in blue or red on burnished gold grounds with red or blue infill and white penwork decoration, 43 three- to one-line initials in gold on blue and red grounds and with gold, blue and red foliate infill, three line-fillers or Greek crosses in blue or red on gold grounds. Three pages including the page with music with bar borders in burnished gold and pink or blue and with full illuminated borders of acanthus leaves and flowering naturalistic plants in red, blue, green, or gold and hairline tendrils in black ink terminating in gold disks, flower buds and trefoils. Condition: a few small marginal holes and some holes in text block caused by acidic ink. Provenance: Cornelius J Hauck Collection, sale Christies New York, 27th June 2006 lot 104. These leaves were part of a lavishly decorated Missal. The style of the border decoration, particularly the use of orange and liquid gold fruits, evokes the illuminator known as the Master of Margaret of Orléans (duchess of Brittany), and the manuscript may have been produced in Brittany. The leaves contain the opening of the Introit Benedicta sit sancta trinita for Mass on Trinity Sunday, the Introit Resurrexi et adhuc tecum for Mass on Easter Sunday, and the Preface Per omnia secula seculorum from the Canon of the Mass.

BOOK OF HOURS, use of Rouen, in Latin. Late 15th Century Northern France (probably Rouen), [c. 1470-80 and c. 1520]. Illuminated manuscript on vellum. Small 4to (160 x 110 mm). 236 leaves, 1 blank, complete, red ink foliation skips a leaf between fols.86 and 87, ruled in red ink, 25 lines, written-space 112mm. by 70mm.

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Le couvent des frères prêcheurs de Rouen fut fondé par saint Louis, dans le manoir Saint-Mathieu, au faubourg Saint-Sever, hors le pont, que le roi avait acquis dès 1261 de l'archevêque Eudes Rigault, en échange du vivier de Martainville. Y succédèrent les religieuses dites Emmurées, et antérieurement Sœurs de Saint-Dominique. En juin 1266, le roi leur fit présent d'une épine de la sainte couronne et de magnifiques ornements. Après sa mort, on leur donna un des os de sa main, dans un reliquaire de cristal.
Farin nous apprend qu'on lisait autrefois, à l'entrée de l'église, la vieille épitaphe sur pierre, ci-après :
L'an mil deux cent soixante-neuf,
Ce monastère fut fait neuf
Que l'en dit les sœurs Emmurées,
Et lequel en temps ancien
Saint Louis, roi très chrétien.
De François fonda en ce lieu
Au titre de saint Mathieu
De son règne l’an troisième
Avec le quarantième.
(Histoire de Rouen, édition 1738)

En faite, la date de la fondation du premier monastère est inconnue. Il fut détruit en 962, et dépendait de l'abbaye de Marmoutier (Indre-et-Loire). Occupé par les jacobins de 1222 à 1247, puis par les dominicaines à partir de 1263. Chapelle construite fin 3e quart 13e siècle. Couvent ruiné lors du siège de Rouen par Henri V roi d' Angleterre en 1418. Reconstruction de la chapelle, consacrée en 1479. Cloître 15e siècle. Couvent dévasté par les Calvinistes en 1562 et lors du siège de Rouen par Henri IV en 1591. Travaux de restauration au 17e siècle. Nef (et peut-être choeur) reconstruite en 1666. Supprimé à la Révolution. Bâtiments conventuels détruits vers 1855. Chapelle détruite par un incendie en 1876. Vestiges du cloître détruits vers 1935 © Inventaire général, 1986.
Sources: service régional de l'inventaire Haute-Normandie
Biblio: Paul Baudry, Le monastère des Emmurés, dans Revue de Rouen, 1848, p. 545-560. Sauvage, R.-N., Notes sur le monastère des Emmurées de Rouen, S.l.n.d. Voir cartulaire aux AD 76, H 68.
 
Arader Galleries de New York présente à la vente un processionnal ayant appartenu au monastère des dominicaines de Saint-Mathieu de Rouen. Le manuscrit fut par la suite en possession du bibliophile normand Jacques Ribard (sans-doute Jacques Paul Vincent Adrien Ribard (° 24/01/1738, + 11/11/1813), fils de Jean-Nicolas Ribard & d'Elisabeth Sangdelion.
Notice du catalogue:
PROCESSIONAL, for the use of Dominican nuns, in Latin and French, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM [France, c.1520 and 1674] 225 x 158 mm. 69 leaves: iv +18, 23 (ii a singleton), 310 (vii and viii a bifolium), 42, 5-64, 72, 88, 96, 10-144, pagination 1-132 followed here, pp.i-iv, pp.35-40, pp.65 and pp.83-134 are all part of the 1674 remodelling, when pp.133 and 134 were left blank, nine lines of music of square notation on a four-line stave of red between nine lines written in black ink in a gothic bookhand, justification: 193 x 108mm, rubrics in red, capitals touched yellow, original leaves with two-line initials of liquid gold on grounds of brick-red or blue and gold decoration within the rubrics, antiphons opening with either fine two-line illuminated initials with monochrome staves against grounds of liquid gold, usually with a flower-sprig as an infill, or with two-line black calligraphic initials with yellow wash, TWELVE LARGE HISTORIATED INITIALS with staves of liquid gold against grounds of red and blue, the biblical scenes in full colour and highlighted with liquid gold, TWO FULL-PAGE ILLUMINATED BORDERS, one of renaissance architectural forms, the other containing the standing figures of saints between flower-sprays against a liquid gold ground; the later leaves of the same format but with up to 28 lines on text-only pages, and restricted to two-line initials of red (borders rubbed, three historiated initials smudged, text erased and replaced, some text alterations made by pasting on updatings). Contemporary calf, panelled in blind with spine gilt in six compartments and with red morocco lettering-piece (some rubbing). CONTENT: Prefatory instructions ff.ii-iv; Table of contents ff.iv verso; chants for the processions on the following feasts: Purification of the Virgin, Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Sunday, Ascension, Corpus Christi, Dedication of the Church, St Dominic, Assumption, St Louis, King of France, St Matthew, All Souls' Day, St Adrian, St Roch pp.1-97; Offices for taking the veil, for the burial of the Dead and the Office of the Dead, Antiphon of St Barbara pp.97-132; chants in honour of the Virgin added in a slightly later hand pp. 133-134. The Processional has undergone extensive remodelling from its original form. This may have been to bring it into line both with post-Tridentine usage and the liturgical requirements of S. Mathieu at Rouen. Sections of text and music have been erased and replaced with detailed instructions and rubrics in French, often evoking a vivid picture of the ritual of religious life. ILLUMINATION: The historiated initials are the work of the illuminator known as the Master of Girard Acarie from his work in the splendid copy of the Roman de la Rose that Acarie presented to Francois I around 1525: Margareta Friesen, Der Rosenroman fur Francois I. New York Pierpont Morgan Library M.948, Graz 1993. The Master, along with the Master of the Ango Hours -- with whom he sometimes collaborated -- was part of the final phase of illuminated manuscript production in Rouen, where the trade in luxury manuscripts continued to flourish well into the 16th century, benefitting from the patronage of Cardinal d'Amboise, Louise of Savoy and other members of the court of Francois I. On a more modest scale, as befits its liturgical and monastic provenance, the present manuscript is, nonetheless, a characteristic demonstration of the Master of Girard Acarie's decorative and suave style. The subjects of the historiated initials are as follows: p.1 Presentation in the Temple with full-page border; p.7 Entry into Jerusalem; p.18 Agony in the Garden; p.22 Christ washing Peter's feet; p.41 Resurrection with full-page border; p.44 Transfiguration; p.49 Ruler offering bread and wine; p.55 Dedication of a Church; p.61 St Dominic; p.67 Assumption; p.73 St Louis; p.77 Apostle. Provenance: 1. The presence of three Dominican saints in the border of p.41 and the provision for the procession on the feast of St Dominic, p.61, suggest that the manuscript was originally made for the use of a Dominican convent. The style of illumination indicates that the manuscript was made in Rouen around 1425. 2. The title-page identifies the manuscript as 'Pour le Chantre du Royal Monastere de S. Mathieu dit les Emmurees ... Rouen' in the year 1674. The manuscript does contain the chants for the feasts of the Dedication of the Church and St Louis of France -- founder of S. Mathieu -- processions that the introduction says are specific to that convent, but it is unlikely that it was originally intended for the use of the precentress there. The manuscript was extensively modified in order to customise it, and other feasts specifically marked with a procession at the convent of S. Mathieu are part of the later additions, or, in the case of St Matthew, an adaptation of the feast for the Common of an Apostle. 3. M. Ribard, rue Morand [Rouen]: his label inside the upper cover. 4. Sir Thomas Phillipps (1792-1872): Ms 4393 (spine label and inscribed on flyleaf), bought from Royez; British Library, Loan 36/18.
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