{ "viewingDirection": "left-to-right", "metadata": [ { "label": "Origin Place", "value": "Paris." }, { "label": "Provenance", "value": "

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

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

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

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

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

John Moore (1646-1714), bishop of Ely: no. 834 (front pastedown<\/a>) 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<\/i> (c. 1697).<\/p>" }, { "label": "Extent", "value": "Codex: iv + 2 + 137 + 2 + iv leaves. Folios 1 and 142 were formerly pastedowns; now lifted. Leaf height: 320 mm, width: 230 mm." }, { "label": "Funding", "value": "" }, { "label": "Date of Creation", "value": "Second quarter of the 14th century, probably c. 1330-1340." }, { "label": "Classmark", "value": "Cambridge, University Library, MS Gg.4.6" }, { "label": "Note(s)", "value": "The section of the text composed by Guillaume de Lorris ends and that by Jean de Meun begins on f. 30r<\/a>.; Mary Rouse (2007) notes that on f. 108v<\/a>, an incorrect display initial renders 'Genius' as 'Venius' (probably a conflation with Venus). Rouse also observes that on f. 47v<\/a>, verses 6729-6741 are repeated after verse 6771 while verses 6772-6870 are omitted." }, { "label": "Donor(s)", "value": "George I, King of Great Britain, 1660-1727" }, { "label": "Additions", "value": "

A marginal annotation in plummet by a medieval hand on f. 25r<\/a>. <\/p>

An inscription, evidently by a medieval hand, but since erased and now illegible on f. 141r<\/a>. <\/p>

Pen trials, including possible names (?'Rutherskth' and another in an apparent cipher), on f. 142r<\/a>. <\/p>

Folio numbers (following the 19th-century foliation sequence) written into Quire 4<\/a> 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<\/i> 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<\/a> (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. <\/p>

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

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. <\/p>" }, { "label": "Subject(s)", "value": "Courtly love in literature; French literature -- To 1500" }, { "label": "Associated Name(s)", "value": "Richard de Montbaston; Bradshaw, Henry, 1831-1886; Pink, H. L.; Gray; Tanner, Thomas, 1674-1735; Pine, John, 1690-1756" }, { "label": "Format", "value": "Codex" }, { "label": "Data Source(s)", "value": "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<\/a>), 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<\/i> (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011) (used here by kind permission of Cambridge University Press)." }, { "label": "Language(s)", "value": "Old French" }, { "label": "Author(s)", "value": "Guillaume de Lorris; Jean de Meun" }, { "label": "Binding", "value": "

Full calf binding with three rectangular frames and four decorative fleurons tooled in gold (17th century). Rebacked by Gray of Cambridge, 1959.<\/p>" }, { "label": "Script", "value": "

Written in littera textualis<\/i> by a single scribe.<\/p><\/div><\/div>" }, { "label": "Excerpts", "value": "

Incipit:<\/b> 3r<\/a>: Maintes gens dient qu'en songes / va se fables non et menconges <\/div>
Explicit:<\/b> 139r<\/a>: Ainsi oi la rose vermaille / A tant fu iour et ge m'esuaille <\/div>" }, { "label": "Physical Location", "value": "Cambridge University Library" }, { "label": "Abstract", "value": "

The Roman de la Rose<\/i> 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. <\/p>

The Roman de la Rose<\/i> 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<\/i> manuscripts (including this one), out of a total of 53 manuscripts or fragments in which one or both of their hands have been identified. <\/p>

Given the (often richly) illuminated form of many of the surviving copies of the Rose<\/i>, 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>, 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.<\/p>

This copy of the Roman de la Rose<\/i> has featured in two recent exhibitions: The moving word: French medieval manuscripts in Cambridge<\/a><\/i>, 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<\/a><\/i> exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum (2005), which surveyed manuscript production and culture in Europe from the 6th to the 16th centuries.<\/p>

Dr James Freeman
Medieval Manuscripts Specialist
Cambridge University Library<\/p>" }, { "label": "Former Owner(s)", "value": "Richard Smith (fl. 16th century); Smith, Robert, fl. 16th/17th centuries; Dygby, John, fl. 16th/17th centuries; Beltham, Richard, fl. 17th century; Moore, John, 1646-1714" }, { "label": "Title", "value": "Le Roman de la Rose" }, { "label": "Author(s) of the Record", "value": "Original description by Suzanne Paul (2014) revised, updated and expanded by James Freeman (2024)." }, { "label": "Material", "value": "Parchment (FHHF<\/i>)." }, { "label": "Collation", "value": "