Place of origin: French

Date of origin: first half 14th century

Support: Parchment, very worn and soiled throughout.

Extent: 124 folios

Format: 285 x 200 mm

Foliation: Foliation in pencil, modern hand, top right corner of rectos, misses a folio between 9 and 10 (the number 19 is written where one would expect the foliation, but it is a remnant of an earlier pagination that is now faded, but frequently still visible throughout).

Collation:

I8 (-2,-3,-4,-5,-6)	ff. 1-3
II8 (-4,-5)	4-9
III8	*-16 (begins with folio that is not foliated)
IV8	17-24
V8	25-32
VI8 (-4,-5)	33-38
VII8	39-46
VIII8(-3,-4,-5,-6)	47-50
IX8	51-58
X8	59-66
XI8	67-74
XII8	75-82
XIII8	83-90
XIV8	91-98
XV8	99-106
XVI8	107-114
XVII8	115-122
(singleton)	123

Quire XVII comprises eight leaves that are bound out of order. There are four bifolia still intact: 115-116, 117-118, 119-120, and 121-122 (using current foliation). They are followed by f. 123, a singleton. The text is out of order, however, and the proper order can only be achieved if the folia are ordered 121 -119 -117 -115 -116 -118 -120 -122 -123. Thus the bifolia must have originally been nested in a gathering of eight, with current ff. 121-122 being the outer bifolium, 119-120 the second bifolium, 117-118 being the third bifolium, and 115-116, in which the text is still contiguous, the innermost bifolium. 123 was – and remains – a singleton added last to complete the text. When the book was rebound, the binder apparently disassembled the gathering and stacked the bifolia one on top of another – but not nested within one another – beginning with the innermost bifolium first. The singleton was still added at the end.

In gatherings I-V, the quires are marked primus, secundus, etc. on the bottom right verso, where one might expect a catchword. Catchwords occur on ff. 74v, 82v, and 90v. Either a quire number or catchword has been cropped at 46v and 58v.

Condition: A number of folios missing, and others bound out of order. Many repairs, some of which are original or quite old – see those, e.g., on ff. 99 and 100.

Page layout: Ruled in lead for two columns. Eight vertical through lines, with one line forming the right edge of each column and three lines – spaced 4-5 mm apart – on the left of each column. These three lines form two spaces, the first of which is occupied by the first letter of each line, and the second of which is left blank to provide a space between the first letter of each line and the rest of the line. Ruling for lines in columns extends from gutter to edge. Size of text block varies from 215-235 x 145-155 mm; 39-41 lines per column. Prickings along top of many leaves in the form of four sets of three prickings each (these produce the three lines on the left side of each column for the recto and verso). Prickings along outer edge for ruled lines usually cropped away, but survive occasionally – e.g., f. 52.

Writing and hands: One scribe throughout, using brown ink and a textualis script. Extensive corrections over subsequent years in a variety of hands, including erasure and overwriting, lining through and subpunction, marginal and supralinear additions, and use of a and b to reorder lines.

Binding: Modern binding (probably 19th c.), 292 mm in height, 225 mm from center of spine to fore edge. Bookboard covered in white parchment. The boards have been wrapped in paper with black ink mottling/speckling to produce the effect of a half-bound volume; i.e., the paper is trimmed away from the spine approximately 30 mm, and has been trimmed off of the corners, leaving the parchment-covered bookboard exposed. Five raised bands discernable through parchment covering on spine. No headband or tailband. A rectangular paper tag at the top of the spine bears the shelfmark M 454. White paper pastedown in front, along with a single flyleaf comprising a paper sheet on the recto side glued to a parchment leaf on the verso side. On the recto, a folded slip of paper has been affixed bearing Stephan Waetzoldt's notes, dated 1875, on the manuscript. The sheet unfolds, containing a collation within and notes on the manuscript's missing leaves. On the verso, the parchment, which is mounted upside down, contains a variety of inscriptions and pen trials. The rear of the book also contains a paper pastedown and a single flyleaf comprising a paper leaf and a parchment leaf glued together, this one with the parchment on the recto side. The parchment leaf contains a text written in a sprawling hand perpendicular to the direction in which it is bound. Additional texts have been written over this, right-side up with respect to the binding (suggesting that perhaps these additions were written after the leaf was included in an earlier binding).

Provenance of the manuscript: Little is known about the provenance of this manuscript, although the following clues may be found within the volume: On front pastedown, a paper bookplate stating that the manuscript was given by Monsieur Couvreu to the Bibliothèque cantonale. At the top of 1r, written in ink in an early hand: 1280. At the bottom of 1r, a black ink stamp of BIBLIOT. ACADEM. LAUSAN with the motto LIBERTE ET PATRIE. The same stamp also at 123v and probably on verso of rear flyleaf, although this latter stamp now mostly faded away. At the bottom of 62r, the name Mons. Jeh. de S. Dider. In his description, Langlois dates the following inscription, found on the final flyleaf, to the 15th century: Gest roman est Simon Gameru, qui le trovra sy le ly aporge. The inscription, which runs perpendicular to the book and is on the extreme right edge of the leaf, is now faded and soiled.
In addition to these, a later user has introduced a numbering system that seems to map this manuscript to the folios of another manuscript and to divide the text into chapters. For example, the left column on 20r has been numbered 34 and the right column 35, while on the same leaf, the reader has noted the switch from Guillaume de Lorris to Jean de Meun and placed the number 21 in the margin, indicating that it is chapter 21. (The notations above the columns sometimes align with Lecoy’s keying of his edition to Bibliothèque nationale de France, fr. 1573, as they roughly do here with fols. 34 and 35, but are not an exact match.)