Manuscripts

It’s always an occasion when a new manuscript of the Roman de La Rose appears on the market because although there are 348 known copies, very few remain in private hands. This one is distinguished by two features: its illustration by a husband-and-wife team of illuminators Richard and Jeanne de Montbaston in Paris and its relatively large number of illuminations, most by the wife Jeanne. Their animated and colorful Gothic style tells the story of the author-dreamer who seeks his lady love, a Rose, which he eventually plucks in a bawdy finale.

142 leaves, complete (i-xvii of 8, xviii of 6), written in brown ink in a gothic script by a single scribe, 18 quires indicated in ink in the lower right margin, some trimmed away, starting ‘a’ and ending ‘s’, on 40 lines, in two columns, ruled in red (justification 225 x 144 mm.), rubrics in red, catchwords (cf. f. 48v) many illuminated 4-line initial,s introduced by a half-page frontispiece framed by a border of 8 medallion portraits, illuminated with 22 large miniatures (c. 65 x 57 mm.), some miniatures slightly rubbed, the upper part of the first miniature and two roundels retouched in the 17^th century, generally in very good condition.  Bound in 17^th-century brown Morocco over pasteboards, gilt spine. Dimensions 313 x 206 mm.

Provenance

1. Written by a single scribe and illuminated by Richard de Montbaston and his wife Jeanne (fl. 1325-1353), who lived and worked on the rue Neuve Notre-Dame in Paris, in the fourteenth century (see Rouse and Rouse, Manuscripts and their Makers).

2. On the verso of f. 141v is a poem by a contemporary scribe, signed Jehan Adam (?), and on the last blank page is another note with the date:  “le XII jour CCCLXII prestai a mestre Jeh[an] Marie mon roman de la Rose” (on the 12^th day of 1362, I loaned to Master Jean-Marie my Roman de la Rose);

3. At the beginning a long note of an owner in 1824, giving many precisions;

4. Collection M.L.B. (1900), “Mort 1978-80 (20 mai 80) [Corse, 12],” this detail from a note on a piece of paper stuck into the manuscript, although we have not been able to identify M.L.B. or to interpret the mention “Corse, 12”;

5. Patrick and Elisabeth Sourget, Chartres, Catalogue 1996, lot 2;

6. Auction, Paris, Drouot, Vincent Fraysse, 18 November 2015, lot 4.

7. Private Collection, Switzerland.

Text

ff. 1-28r, first part by Guillaume de Lorris, incipit “Maintes gens dient que en songes/ n’a se fables non et mensonges …” explicit, “Se je per vostre bienveillance / Que je ne mes ailleurs fiance”.; ff. 28r-140, continuation by Jean de Meung, incipit “Et si l'ai-ge perdu, espoir, A poi que ne m'en desespoir!”; explicit: “Car je témoigne et certifie. Que tout ce que j'ai récité. Est fine et pure vérité. Explicit li romans de la rose.”

According to the Stemma of Langlois, this is part of the group N but it also contains interpolations characteristic of  the second family (see Langlois, 1910, ff. 238ff);

ff. 141v, Jehan Adam: “Ballade sur l’invention des armes de France,” an unedited work in verse of the fifteenth century;

The Roman de la Rose was one of the most widely read and debated of medieval works. The fact that more than 300 manuscript or manuscript fragments survive is an eloquent demonstration of its popularity. Of the 328 extant manuscripts, 253 are illustrated, a far greater number than any other literary text apart from Dante. It was the pre-eminent poem of chivalric love, and it had a decisive impact on European literature through its influence on Dante, Petrarch, and Chaucer, among others.  For nearly 200 years, the scholarship on the Rose has been prolific and it remains just as lively today.  Students of art, literature, linguistics, philosophy, politics, and law have all contributed to the scholarly literature.  The poem resonates with concerns about authorship, reception theory, gender, sexuality, and more recently with globalism and postcolonialism, not to mention thorny questions of interpretation.  In the last half century, as many as 300 books and articles appear every ten years.  As a recent scholar put it: “the Rose’s popularity … has never been greater,” and “shows no sign of losing any of its vibrancy.” 

Today, most of the 328 manuscripts are in institutional collections; only a few remain in private hands, while several others are still untraced.  The appearance, therefore, of any Rose on the market is of utmost interest.  This one, as we shall see, is pivotal as an example of the work of a husband-and-wife team of illuminators, working in Paris and evidently specialized in the illustration of the Roman de la Rose and other secular works in the vernacular.

The poem was begun around 1230 by Guillaume de Lorris and left incomplete, perhaps on his death; it was taken up some forty years later by Jean de Meun, a scholar and translator residing in Paris. Guillaume de Lorris set his allegory of the Lover’s quest to attain the Rose in the framework of a dream he had as a twenty-year-old, some five years earlier. In his dream he journeys to a walled garden where he views rosebushes in the Fountain of Narcissus. When he goes to select his own special blossom, the God of Love shoots him with arrows, leaving him forever enamored of one particular Rose. His efforts to obtain the Rose meet with little success. A stolen kiss alerts the guardians of the Rose, who then enclose it behind still stronger fortifications.  The author explores the nature of love with personifications he meets in the garden, who help or hinder him in his endeavor to reach the Rose.  Through the course of the poem, he see-saws between hope and despair. At the point where Guillaume de Lorris’s poem breaks off, the protagonist, confronted with these obstacles to the realization of his love, is left lamenting his fate This is the earliest sustained first-person narrative and narrative allegory in French.

Jean de Meun's continuation on ff. 28v to 141, four times the length of Lorris’s original poem, changed the nature of the work and extended the range of the debate. He concludes the narrative with a bawdy account of the plucking of the Rose, achieved through deception, which is very unlike Guillaume's idealized conception of the love quest. However, before the Lover finally achieves the Rose in the continuation, Jean de Meun takes the reader through the sort of semi-encyclopedic compilation so favored in the Middle Ages.  Of the 17,722 verses of Jean de Meun, more than 12,000 are translations and paraphrases of Latin texts. Of them 5,000 are from Alanus ab Insulis (Alain de Lille), 3,000 from Boethius, 2,000 from Ovid, and more than 1,000 from Guillaume de Saint-Amour.  He uses these to parody or even provocatively revise traditional assumptions. The tone is often satirical, and the allegory is more evidently erotic. The mix of old and new, the infinite possibilities of interpretation, the evocative descriptions of the beauties of nature, all gave the poem an immediate and continuing appeal.

Illustration

Many of the Rose manuscripts are illustrated, most with fewer than ten illustrations, but there are a number with twenty or more miniatures lavishly painted with gold and colored pigments. Others are unillustrated or have a single opening illustration and so represent a less costly undertaking.

The professional illuminators Richard de Montbaston and his wife Jeanne (fl.1325-1353) are thought to have illustrated as many as twenty Rosemanuscripts (see Rouse and Rouse 2000, I, pp.234-260; II, Appendix 9A, “Manuscripts illuminated by Richard and Jeanne de Montbaston”). The full-page miniature and the visible design of the smaller medallions on the frontispiece are attributed to Richard, whereas the painting of other miniatures is more likely attributable to Jeanne. The closest comparison with the decoration can be made with MS 5226 of the Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal in Paris (by Richard and Jeanne de Montbaston, cf. Rouse, II, p. 204), whereas the marginal decoration of the first page is close to MS 3338 also in the Arsenal (by Jeanne de Montbaston and the Maubeuge Master, cf. Rouse, II, p. 204).

f. 1v, opening of the Roman de la Rose: Guillaume lying in bed dreaming; Guillaume getting up from his bed; Guillaume walking along a river, listening birds singing in the trees; Guillaume at the only entrance of the garden with singing birds in the trees appealing to the personification of Idleness (Oiseuse) to let him in; tendril with eight roundels with heads of different lay persons or perhaps the personifications.

f. 2r, Hate, rubric, “haine pourtrete,” incipit, “De ces ymages lasemblage …,” with a furrowed face and snub nose, seated on a bench, looking at a young woman in the window of a tower, her body turned away from the tower;

f. 2r, Villany, rubric, “Felonnie pourtrete,” incipit, “Appellee estoit villennie …,” with a woman Villany pointing toward a chaice presented to her by a figure kneeling on the left;

f. 2v, Covetousness, rubric, “Courvoisie pourtrete,” incipit, “Apres fu painte couvoistise …” a woman seated on a bench, a tower behind her, while she puts ecclesiastical vessels in her bag;

f. 2v, Greed, rubric, “Avarice pourtrete,” incipit, “Une autre ymage assise …,” a a bench putting coins in her purse, garments draped above her on a rack, a tower behind;

f. 3r, Envy, rubric, “Envie pourtrete,” incipit, “Apres refu pourtaite envie …,” a woman with a snub nose, looking at two pretty women in the window of a house, her body turned away, her arms raised in gesture;

f. 3v, Sadness, rubric, “Tristesce pourtrete,” incipit, “Delez envie auquels pars yece …,” a woman seated on a bench between two towers, her dress revealing pendulous breasts, tearing at her hair with her hands; 

f. 3v, Old Age, rubric “Viellesce pourtrete,” incipit, “Apres fu viellesce pourtraite …, an old woman walking on two crutches, a tower behind her, and a fireplace in front of her; 

f. 4r, Hypocrisy, rubric “Papalardie pourtrete,” incipit, “Une autre ymage apres escripte,” a woman reading a book kneeling before an altar;

f. 4v, Poverty, rubric “Povrete pourtrete,” incipit, “Pouvrette fu au dernier …,” (Povrette), a ragged woman in a tattered dress before a well-dressed man;"not getting a penny for her coat"; 

f. 6v, The Carol in the Garden of Love, rubric, “Cest la quarolle au dieu d’amours,” The God of Love, dancing and singing with Sweet Look (Douce Regard), Pleasure (Deduit), Gladness (Leesce), Courtesy (Courtoisie), Richness (Richesce), Largesse (Largesce), and Youth (Jeunesce), in the middle with a red crown and wings, led by a dancer with horn and bagpipes;

f. 11r, The Lover at the Fountain of Narcissus seeing the reflection of the Rose, rubric, “Ci parle l’amant de la mort au biau narcissus …”;

f.14v, The Lover pays Homage to the God of Love, rubric “Comment l’amant fate homage au dieu d’amous et comment il le recoit”;     

f.19v, Bel Acueil Speaking to the Lover; rubric “Comment bel parle a l’amant”:

f.24r, Venus speaks to Bel Acueil, in her right hand a fire stick, rubric, “Comment venus la deesse parle a bel de brandon en la main”;

f.28, Jean de Meun Writing, author portrait signifying the beginning of the text by Jean de Meun;

f.33v, Fortune with the Wheel of Fortune, rubric, “Comment fortune est en sa roe les bandes et la tourne ou il veulx » ;

f.48v, Amis again counsels the Lover;                                                                             

f.126v, Genius preaching Nature's Message, rubric, “Ci commence genuius son sarmon”;

The fourteenth century was the heyday for the production of manuscripts of the Rose, and from a study of the patronage, it is evident that the poem appealed to a wide range of social classes and levels of education. In 1373 Charles V of France (king from 1364-1380) owned no fewer than four copies, while a contemporary bourgeoisof Douai had a copy to leave in his will. With so many manuscripts in circulation, further copies were easily obtained. A contract with a Dijon scribe in 1399 shows that three months was considered adequate for writing the text (see P.-Y. Badel, Le Roman de la Rose en XIVe siècle, Geneva, 1980). At the end of the century, it was the subject of fierce literary debate as the authoress Christine de Pizan decried Jean de Meun's attack on women and his arguably blasphemous language.  It was printed seven times during the incunable period, first in Geneva in 1481, followed by two editions in Lyons in the 1480s and one edition in Paris in the 1490s.   

Illustrations in the 253 illuminated Rose manuscripts vary significantly both in number and subject matter. There are, however, some consistencies:  the lover-scribe dreaming that introduces Guillaume de Lorris’s text is commonplace, although the treatment differs from one copy to another.  Many fourteenth-century copies include a sequence of the Virtues in the gardens as occurs in the present copy.  However, even Rose manuscripts apparently produced in the same workshop –such as those by the Montbastons – may may differ in the extent of illustration, the subjects selected, and the treatment of individual subjects: see McMunn in Leaves of Gold, Manuscript Illumination from Philadelphia Collections, 2001, pp. 210-214. It may be that with a text in the vernacular and a story that was widely known, illuminators felt confident enough to devise their own interpretations.

Richard and Mary Rouse have studied the careers of the husband-and-wife team, Richard and Jeanne de Montaston (Rouse and Rouse 2000).  They found Richard in documents in Paris from 1338, when he swore an official oath as libraire, to 1353, when he is listed as “defunctus” in the oath sworn as a libraire by his widow Jeanne.  In 1348, Richard also signed and dated a manuscript in an advertisement for his activity (Paris, BnF, MS fr. 241).  By 1348, they lived and worked on the rue Neuve Nostre Dame in Paris.  Quite a large number of manuscripts are attributable to them, working separately and together, as well as in collaboration with other illuminators.  From the Rouse’s study, it is evident that they specialized in secular texts in the vernacular.  In addition to the twenty Roman de la Rose they produced, there are copies of Sidrac, the Artus de Bretagne, the Sept sages de Rome, the Voeux du paon, the Roman de Tristain, the Bestiare d’Amour, and others.  While members of the royal circle appear to have sought the services of the likes of Jean Pucelle and Master Honore for religious manuscripts, they went to Richard and Jeanne when they desired romances and histories. 

The findings of the Rouses on their activity as illuminators of the Roman de la Rose are interesting.  No two manuscripts illuminated by the team are alike:  they are of different sizes, with a different number and placement of miniatures, and different subjects of illuminations.  This observation alone suggests that the role of the patron in choosing the illuminations was important.  The Rouses attempt to sort out the hands of the team are not wholly convincing.  There is such a similarity in technique that, even if Richard’s figures are “more carefully finished” than Jeanne’s, their methods of modelling and distinguishing facial characteristics are quite close, the result of their working together, side by side, as it were.  Here, along with the IRHT team who studied this manuscript, we have attributed only the frontispiece to Richard, with the other miniatures to Jeanne.

Literature

Published:

Langlois, Ernest. Les manuscrits du Roman de la Rose: Description et Classement, Paris, 1910.

Rouse, Richard H. and Mary A. Manuscripts and Their Makers.  Commercial Book Producers in Medieval Paris 1200-1500, London, 2000, II, p. 203.

Further Reading:

Arden, Heather M. The ‘Roman de la rose’: An Annotated Bibliography, New York, 1993.

Badel, P.-Y. Le Roman de la Rose en XIVe siècle, Geneva, 1980

Braet, Herman. “Autour de la Rose, 1990–2005,” in De la ‘Rose’: texte, image, fortune, ed. by Catherine Bel and H. Braet, Louvain, 2006, pp. 459–520;

Braet, Herman.  “Annexe bibliographique: autour de la Rose, II,” in Nouvelles de la Rose: actualité et perspectives du ‘Roman de la rose’, ed. by Dulce María González-Doreste and María del Pilar Mendoza-Ramos, La Laguna, 2011, pp. 479–92;

Braet, Herman.  “La Tradition critique: un inventaire (bibliographie commentée, 2001–2011),” in Lectures du ‘Roman de la rose’ de Guillaume de Lorris, ed. by Fabienne Pomel, Rennes, 2012, pp. 241-272.

Online Resources

Digital Library of Medieval Manuscripts (The Roman de la Rose Digital Library) https://dlmm.library.jhu.edu/en/romandelarose/extant-manuscripts/

List of Extant Manuscripts of the Rose (DLMM) https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/10CB49KODbQ0Vl_rnJUyLYM0awKu_VXvrJ46QyZsFczk/edit#gid=0

where this Rose is listed as “Unknown Location”

Not listed in ARLIMA, where 258 copies are cited, most with locations. https://www.arlima.net/il/jean_de_meun/le_roman_de_la_rose.html