Beschreibung:

Sermons in Old French and Latin, formerly attributed to Maurice de Sully, but now to Guillaume de Blois, bishop of Lincoln, with the Evangile de Nicodème and Lettre de Pilate, in Old French, decorated manuscript on parchment [France, opening decades of fourteenth century] To view a video of this lot, click here. 89 leaves (plus one modern paper endleaf at each end), wanting a single leaf from end of sermons and last leaf mostly torn away, else complete, collation: i-ix8, x7 (wanting i), xi4, xii6 (wanting last two leaves, these probably cancelled blanks), double column of 29 lines of a rounded vernacular bookhand, written below topline with numerous biting curves but without much lateral compression, capitals touched in red, 2-line initials in alternate red or blue with contrasting penwork, last text opening with 5-line initial in red and blue variegated panels, enclosing and encased within ornate red and blue penwork with marginal extensions above top of column and down entire inner vertical side, similar 4-line initial opening sermon-text beneath a column-wide square miniature of God seated before a dark blue starry sky and holding a golden book, the symbols of the four evangelists at the four corners of the miniature, numerous scribal errors, small losses to miniature and gold there crackled, occasional small areas of water-damage and resulting offset or scuffing, but without substantial affect to text, grain-pattern noticeable on some pages, a few leaves with original flaws in parchment (some with later parchment repairs), most of last leaf, half of one leaf and bottom of first leaf torn away (these replaced with paper, most probably at time of last binding), overall good condition, 220 by 154mm.; bound in nineteenth- or early twentieth-century red velvet over pasteboard Text: The volume opens with the Latin prologue to these Sermons (beginning 'Dominus ac Salvater noster dilectissimi ...'), before the same in a longer form in Old French ('Seignors prevoires ceste parole ne fu ...'). On fol. 3r the sermon on the Creed opens the work ('Nos creons la sainte ...'), before the text adopts on fol. 3v the format it will continue in for most of the volume: three or four lines of theme for each sermon in Latin, before a lengthy text in Old French (the first 'Pater noster qui es in celis santificetur nomen tuum. Nostre Pere, qui est elciel [in error for 'es ciex'] saintifie ...'). This ends on fol. 72v, wanting a single leaf, and partway through the epilogue to the text. Traditionally this early vernacular sermon collection has been ascribed to Maurice de Sully, who served as the bishop of Paris from 1160 to his death in 1196. However, doubts have persisted with suspicions that these sermons may have been compiled after his death, and perhaps date to the end of the twelfth century or even the opening of the thirteenth century. In a study published only last year, M.M. Huchet proposed that the author was Guillaume de Blois, a Frenchman connected with the court of Hugh de Puiset, bishop of Durham, and perhaps also King Stephen of England ('Les sermons en français attribués à Maurice de Sully: la piste anglaise', Romania, 2020, pp. 325-59). Guillaume de Blois served in Hugh de Puiset's household in Durham until he moved to that of Hugh de Avalon, bishop of Lincoln, who he succeeded in that office in 1203, holding that office until his death in 1206. Gerald of Wales relates a story about how he was inveigled into the house of a wealthy lady in Paris, and had to fend off her amorous advances. The text is of immense importance for the history of Old French (langue d'oil), and ranks among the earliest literary compositions in that language, formed alongside the earliest blossoming of troubadour compositions in the opening decades of the thirteenth century. If the connection to Guillaume de Blois is correct, then this text also has the added honour of being from the golden age of Anglo-Norman literature. It was popular in the Middle Ages