YALE UNIVERSITY
BEINECKE RARE BOOK AND MANUSCRIPT LIBRARY
GENERAL COLLECTION OF RARE BOOKS AND
MANUSCRIPTS
PRE-1600 MANUSCRIPTS
Beinecke MS 703
Northern France, s. XIV 1
Jean de Meun, Le testament; Raoul de Houdenc, Le Songe d'Enfer
1. ff. 1r-15v Li Pere et li Fiz et li Saint Esperis, / Un Deu en III personnez aorez et cheris, /
Tienge lez bons en grace et racort lez peris, / Et doint que cest traitie soit a maine meris. / J'ai fait
en ma jonesce mais diz par vanite, / Ou maintes gens [this word above the line] ce sont maintez
foiz delite. / Or m'en doint Dieu I. faire par vraie charite / Por amender les autres, qui poi m'ont
profite ... Si finera mon dit eu nom de Jhesu Crist, / Et chascun qui l'orra merie Jhesu Crist, / Et li
prit hunblement que nous soions escript / Eu saint livre de vie qu'il meismez escrit. Amen.
Explicit testamentum magistri Iohannis de Meduno, cuius anima requiescat in pace. Amen.
Jean de Meun (c. 1240, d. before 1305), Le Testament, ed. J.B. Lantin de Damerey, Roman de la
Rose, v. 3 (Paris, an VII = 1798-9), pp. 259-365; also S. Buzzetti-Gallaratti (Alessandria, 1989)
[not seen].
2. ff. 15v-18v En songe puet fables avoir. / Se songier puet devenir voir, / Donc sai ge bien que il
avint / Qu'en [or: Que] songe en songant m'avint / Talent que pelerin sereie. / Je m'en tornay et
pris ma veie / Tout droit a la cite d'Enfer / Tout le Quaresme et tout l'iver
... Je pris congie, me
mis a voie, / Au departir me firent joie / Si grant que ce fut grant merveille. / Il fu grant jour, et ge
m'esveille.
Raoul de Houdenc (c. 1170-c. 1230), Le Songe d'Enfer (La Voie d'Enfer), 1-672. M. Timmel
Mihm, ed. At least 6 verses are missing at the end; they were probably written on a leaf now
missing after f. 18. Our manuscript has the siglum F in the Mihm edition.
Parchment, ff. I (paper) + 18 + I (paper), 215 x 165 mm. Low quality parchment. The outer side
of the quires is flesh side. The codex is badly trimmed, causing the loss of letters at the end of
verses.
I8 (ff. 1-8), II10 (ff. 9-18). In the lower margin of f. 9r, in Gothica Cursiva s. XIII/XIV: "le
segont cayer du testament mestre Jehan de Meun".
Full crayon ruling (almost invisible) for two columns of 34-38 lines, from f. 15v onwards 39-43
lines, above or below top line, 165/185 x 140/150. There are double vertical bounding-lines at left
at both columns.
Copied by one hand in a rather uneven Northern Gothica Textualis Libraria, marked by many
fusions.
The opening letters of all verses are heightened in red; in art. 1 the first verse of each quatrain
except the first one opens with a 1-line plain red initial. Art. 1 opens with a 3-line plain red initial,
art. 2 with a 2-line one. All initials are executed over guide-letters.
Binding s. XIX: half brown leather over pasteboard, the boards covered with red paper. On the
spine a black leather label with the gold-tooled title "CODICILLE / I. DE MEUN" and a green
circular paper label with the handwritten shelfmark "301".
In the upper margin of f. 12v a contemporary hand wrote the name (?) "*** Lebra* (?)".
Collection Joseph Barrois (1784-1855): on the front paste-down a cutting from a printed
catalogue is pasted, containing under no. 104 a short description in French of the present
manuscript; a rapid handwritten note s. XIX above this cutting specifies "Cat. *** Oct. 1845
(?)". Acquired in 1849 by Lord Ashburnham (1797-1878; MS 301 in his collection). Sotheby
sale of the Ashburnham manuscripts, London, 10-14 June 1901 (lot 304). Purchased by J. and J.
Leighton, booksellers in London, and sold by them the same year (see A Selection of Choice
Manuscripts and Early Printed Books from the Ashburnham, Barrois and other Collections
Recently Dispersed [London, 1901], lot 41). From an unknown date in the collection of Jules (dit
Julien) Chappee, at Le Mans. At his death (1957) the manuscript passed into the hands of Claude
Vaudecrane (Le Mans). After two unsuccessful endeavours to sell the manuscript (Drouot, Paris,
1976 and 1979), it was purchased in 1989?? from Laurence Witten on the Edwin J. Beinecke
Fund.
Bibliography:
M. Friedwagner, "Die Ashburnham-Handschrift des Songe d'Enfer von Raoul de Houdenc", in
Festschrift zum VIII. allgemeinen deutschen Neuphilologentage in Wien (Vienna, 1898), pp. 223-
238.
M. Timmel Mihm, The Songe d'Enfer of Raoul de Houdenc: An Edition based on all the Extant
Manuscripts. Beihefte zur Zeitschrift fuer Romanische Philologie, v. 190 (Tuebingen, 1984), pp. 26-
30.
Albert Derolez
R 18.02.09