Merlin Fragment

While they were rejoicing in the feast, and Kay the seneschal brought the first dish to King Arthur and Queen Guinevere, there arrived the most handsome man ever seen in Christian lands. He was wearing a silk tunic girded by a silk harness woven with gold and precious stones which glittered with such brightness that it illuminated the whole room." Translation of the Suite Vulgate du Merlin, Cambridge UL, MS Vanneck Box 5a f. 2v

A medieval fragment of the Old French Suite Vulgate du Merlin (GBR/0012/MS Vanneck Box 5a) was re-discovered in 2019 in Cambridge University Library during the re-cataloguing of the manorial and estate records relating to the Vannecks of Heveningham (Suffolk). It was used as a cover for the court rolls - a formal property record - of Huntingfield Manor.

A project involving multiple teams across Cambridge University Library and the wider university was funded by Cambridge Digital Humanities in 2023. As part of this interdisciplinary project, the fragment was not removed from the archival document but preserved in situ as an original example of modern English archival binding.

We investigated how access to the folded-up and stitched fragment could be managed, and how digital techniques could contribute to opening it up virtually, while preserving its unique structure as a sixteenth-century binding. The use of cutting-edge imaging and analysis technologies (Multispectral Imaging and X-ray examination by computed tomography, or CT-Scan) as well as ingenious virtual manipulations made possible the digitisation and access to hidden textual parts, revealing the structure of the binding.

This complemented traditional methods for the study of manuscripts (ranging from codicology, palaeography and art history to linguistics and textual study) and helped carry on a holistic and in-depth study of the fragment, as well as its critical edition (in progress).

The text contained in the bifolium corresponds to two distinct episodes from the end of the Suite Vulgate du Merlin. Folio 1 describes the victory of the Christians against the Saxons at the Battle of Cambénic. It tells of the fight of Gauvain (with his sword Excalibur, his horse Gringalet and his supernatural powers), his brothers and his father King Loth against the Saxon Kings Dodalis, Moydas, Oriancés, and Brandalus.

Folio 2 is set at the court of Arthur who gathers his liege men and their wives on 15 August, the Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. Gift giving by Guinevere and Arthur is followed by a religious service and a banquet where arrives a beautifully clothed blind harpist (Merlin).

3D scanning of the Merlin manuscript in Cambridge UL, Cultural Heritage Imaging Laboratory.