MS G: Contents and Description

Guillaume de Machaut, Nouviaus dis amoureus, volume 2

Late 14th-century, two-volume complete-works collection of Guillaume de Machaut's poetic and musical works. MS 22546 and 22545 form a pair.

Object Description

Layout:

35.5 x 26 cm, writing block ca. 28.5 x 18.5 cm 2 cols. at 52 ll./col.

Hand Description

Formal bookhand. One scribe throughout. For additional information on scribal practice, see Earp 1983, 97-101; Harden 1983, 138-47.

Music

Contains music. Red staves 1.35 cm tall, ruled with a rastrum.

Decorations

Rubrics. MS F fol. 1r has a floriated initial three lines tall for the opening rubric of the Prologue, pink and blue with gold background, and an initial eight lines tall for the first ballade of the Prologue, with gold bar borders with ivy and dragon at top. New poems usually begin with a gold and blue divided initial four lines tall, with red and black filigree. Other initials are two lines tall, alternating solid red with black filigree and solid blue with red filigree. On the 148 miniatures, see the descriptions in chap. 4.4. Avril (1982a, 128-29), discusses the date of the miniatures and identifies the illuminator as Perrin Remiet (or Remy). For further on Remy, see chap. 4.2 tables 4.7 and 4.10. Of the forty-six prose letters in the Voir Dit, all except the following thirteen are marked off to the left with the sign "[insert graphic]": no. 1, fol. 140r; no. 2, fol. 140r (ed. P. Paris 1875 as no. 4); no. 7, fol. 147r (ed. as no. 3); no. 9, fol. 148r; no. 14, fol. 156v; no. 23, fol. 167r; nol. 25, fol. 167v; no. 34, fol. 179v; no. 36, fol. 180v; no. 38, fol. 182v; no. 39, fol. 183r; no. 41, fol. 189r; no. 44, fol. 195r. Four ballades are marked by the initials .y.p. near the flourish initial for the first line of the poem, some of which were apparently written before the flourish initial itself was painted (fol. 154r, Le plus grant bien [VD30]; fol. 162r, Gent corps [VD42]; fol. 170v, Hui ha .i. mois [VD48]; fol. 181v, Quant Theseüs [VD56=B34]). Finally, the monogram "R" appears twice, below col. 1 on fol. 172r, and near the bottom of fol. 181v.

Additions

INSCRIPTIONS: Vers françois / Tome Second / Conventus Parisiens. / Carmilit. Discalccat. (fol. iii v at bottom)

Binding

Bound in red morocco, eighteenth (?) century.

History

DATE AND PROVENANCE. A dating ca. 1390 was proposed in Rive 1780, (1). Most later studies, on the basis of the contents of the manuscript, have placed F-G within Machaut's lifetime as the last of the manuscripts prepared under the supervision of the author (Hoepffner 1908-21, 1:xlvi, li; Reaney 1952b, 34; 1967, 88). On art historical grounds, however, Avril (1982a, 129) has again placed it in the 1390s. Readings in the music section indicate that it is closely related to MS A, although not a direct copy; they probably shared the same exemplars (cf. Earp 1989, 488-89; Leech-Wilkinson 1990c, 96-98). The original owner is unknown, but the many representations of a coat of arms in several miniatures may identify the original owner, a member of the upper middle class and not a member of the aristocracy (Avril 1982a, 129). Keitel (1982c, 92) provides a description and diagram of the coat of arms; see also the various heraldic descriptions in Rive 1780, (1); Tarbé 1849, 182; and Guelliot 1914, 299 ("De sable, au sautoir d'or, cantonné de quatre mouchetures d'hermine d'argent"); Cerquiglini 1987a has color facsimiles of several miniatures that bear the coat of arms. MS F-G was apparently first rediscovered by the abbé Lebeuf ca. 1735 in the library of the Carmes déchaussés (Discalced Carmelites), rue de Vaugirard, Paris. Inscriptions in the front of both manuscripts identify them as volumes of that library. Lebeuf, whose work marks the beginning of modern interest in Machaut, first mentioned the manuscript in print in his 1743 mémoire on Philippe de Mezières (Lebeuf 1751), folowed by the mémoire of 1746 (Lebeuf 1753). MS F-G then appeared in the library of Louis-Jean Gaignat (1697-1768), which was catalogued after his death by De Bure (1769, 451-52 no. 1778). It was then purchased by the duke of La Vallière (1708-1780), and again catalogued by De Bure (1783, 262, 253-54 [recte 262-64] no. 2771). It came to the Bibliothèque du Roy after the death of the duke. Perhaps there are some further notes on the eighteenth-century state of MS F-G in an unpublished study by the abbé Rive, "Notice sur des poésies manuscrites de Guillaume de Machau qui sont dans la bibliothèque de M. de La Vallière," preserved in Carpentras, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 1259 (Duhamel 1901). Earlier shelfmarks: La Vallière 251 and 252; 2771 (fol. iir; De Bure catalogue of 1783).

Bibliography

• Omont 1898, 520-21
• Wolf 1904, 1:157-62
• Ludwig 1904-5, 610-11
• Ludwig 1926-54, 2:8*-9* et passim
• Schrade 1956c, 24
• RISM 1969, 192-97
• Reaney 1980c, 663
• Wilkins 1989, 298-99