Ars nova

ten red five-line staves; 13 mm

74v

Script: gothica textualis rotunda.

Parchment

RISM Supplement: 74 fols, (some mutilated; foliated 1-74), and at least a further 35 leaves and cancels, now lost, some of which are now unfoliated stubs. Parchment. 270 x 190 mm. Written space 190 x 138 mm (poetry); 205 x 150 mm (music on fol. 74v). Poetry written in 40 lines per page in two columns. Ruling: ten red five-line staves (13 mm) ruled with a rastrum in two columns (each 75 mm wide); frame rules, and double text guides on fol. 74v (fol. 74r is blank). Collation: often unclear from the physical structure of the book, although catchwords, leaf signatures and particularly gaps in the text (assuming c. 160 lines per leaf) provide some indication of the number of missing leaves. The modern binder has tidied the collation in places, e.g. by adding fols. 23 and 31, the sole surviving leaves of their respective gatherings, to adjacent gatherings. The following is a reconstructed collation, so far as the survival of leaves allows: 1/6 (lacks 1 and 3), 2/10 (lacks 1, 6-9), 3/4 (lacks 1), 4/4 (lacks 2, and 4 [both cancels]), 5/8, 6 two (the first, falling before fol. 23, is lost; fol. 23 is now bound as a half-sheet at the end of gathering 5), 7/8 (lacks 7 and 8), 8 two conjoint leaves (fol. 30 and the preceding stub; possibly the remains of a larger quire), 9/6 (lacks 2-6; fol. 31, the first leaf of this gathering, is now bound as a half-sheet at the beginning of gathering 9), 10/10 (lacks 1, 4, 6, 7, 9 and 10; 10, now a stub, must be a cancel), 11/6 + at least one further leaf lost after the third stub after fol. 38 (lacks 4-6), 12/8 (lacks 1, 2, 6-8; 8 is a cancel), 13/8 (lacks 1 and 5), 14/8-16/8, 17 four (2 and 3 [fol. 73 and the preceding stub] are conjoint). Leaf signatures in quire 10 (on fols. 32-34), possibly the original quire 'o', and in quire 14 ('<', '<<', '<<<' and'<<<<' on fols. 48-51). Catchwords on fols. 4v (not originally followed by fol. 5), 14v, 23v, 30v, 47v, 55v, 63v; a series of signs used to confirm the order of leaves, and that of quires 3 and 4, appears on fols. 9, 12 v -13, 14 and on the verso of the stub following fol. 13. Script: gothica textualis rotunda; several hands. Notation: Ars nova. Decoration: all leaves with historiated initials have been removed, although fol. 7 bears an offset of an elaborate one-column initial, portraying a figure with a cross or sword, cut from fol. 6v. Minor initials in gold, on red and blue with white flourishing; capital letters at the beginnings of lines are splashed in yellow throughout the manuscript, except on fols. 30-41v and fols. 72-74.

Written in France. One of the manuscripts of the 'complete works' of Guillaume de Machaut, comparable in date and possibly also in content with F-Pn, MS français 1586 (see Earp, 'Machaut's Role', p. 472). There is evidence that the physical structure of this book was recast at an early date to accommodate the addition of further, and possibly new, material, and also that it may originally have been divided into two volumes. The Remede de Fortune (of which only fols. 30-41 remain) was probably added to the manuscript at a fairly late stage in its compilation: this text is written in a different hand from that of the main corpus of the book, within a different pattern of frame rules, and the minor illumination of these leaves was not completed (see above). Fol. 71 was originally the last leaf of the book, as the rust-marks from the two clasps on the original binding, which appear on fols. 1 and 71 but not on fols. 72-74, make clear; moreover, the end of the text on fol. 71r is followed by ' Joyeulz espoir a. c', and three stanzas of French verse, beginning 'Et ne seseres vous jamais', both added s. xv. Fol. 71v is blank, and bears paste marks from an early binding. Fols. 72 -74 were not originally part of this volume, and, in addition, are distinct from the main corpus of MS 5010C both scribally, and in the pattern of frame-rules. These leaves probably formed part of a second volume, of which the remainder is now lost, containing only the lais and musical items of the Machaut works (for the division of other 'complete works' manuscripts at this point, see Earp, 'Machaut's Role', pp. 474-475). Fol. 47 (from the middle of the Dit de l'Alerion, and conjoint with the lost first leaf of this text) appears to have been ruled and written separately, and may be a replacement for a leaf removed at this point. Water damage at the spine of the book throughout. Modern pigskin binding over pith boards. Owned: Sir Francis Bourdillon (1852-1921), bought by him from Bernard Quaritch Ltd. in 1919; bought by the National Library of Wales, with MSS 5001-5148, in 1922.

NOTES ON CONTENTS

Now heavily mutilated, the remaining contents of this manuscript are: (1) Loange des Dames, fols. 1-9v (gatherings 1-2 above). Highly fragmentary, although more complete at the end. (2) Jugement du roi de Behaingne, fols. 10-21 (gatherings 3-5; fol. 22 is blank). Lacks 11. 1-144. (3) Dit du Vergier, fols. 23-29 (gatherings 6-7). Lacks 11. 1-65 and the last 108 lines. (4) Remede de Fortune, fols. 30-41 (gatherings 8-12). Lacks, including all sections with musical interpolations, 11. 1-68, 349-1160, 1481-1630, 1791-2061, 2219-2366, 2833-3628, 4097-4298. (5) Dit de l'Alerion, and lai No. 9, fols. 42-71 (gatherings 13-16). Lacks 11. 1-157, 638-797. (6)lais 1 and 13 from which all music has been cut out, and item 1 below, fols. 72-74 (gathering 17; fol. 74r is blank). Item (1) must originally have stood at the beginning of this volume and item (5) at its end; items (2), (3) and (4), however, are physically discrete and may originally have occurred in a different order. A further Dit is probably missing in its entirety after (4); the verso of the second stub after fol. 29 preserves fragments of border flourishing from a text that cannot be either the Dit du Vergier (which must end on the verso of the lost preceding leaf, now the first stub after fol. 29), or the opening of any other item surviving.

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