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Jean de Courcy, Chronique de la Bouquechardière, or Histoire Grecque et Romaine, in French, illuminated manuscript on vellum [Paris, c.1480]
Details
The Chronique de la Bouquechardière
Jean de Courcy, Chronique de la Bouquechardière, or Histoire Grecque et Romaine, in French, illuminated manuscript on vellum [Paris, c.1480]
A swashbuckling, energetically illuminated volume of Jean de Courcy's vast historical chronicle in French, containing very early illustrations of cannons and hand-held firearms.
420 x 294mm. i (paper) + 322 + i (paper) leaves, collation: 16 (of 8, lacking i and viii), 26, 37(of 8, lacking iv), 47(of 8 one leaf cancelled with no loss of text), 56, 64, 78, 86, 9-188, 196, 20-258, 26-276, 28-337(of 8 one leaf in each gathering cancelled with no loss of text), , 348, 355 (of 6, one leaf cancelled with no loss of text), 367(of 8, one leaf cancelled with no loss of text), 37-448, two columns of 48 lines, ruled space: 300 x 212mm, vertical catchwords survive, chapter headings in red, illuminated chapter initials throughout on red and blue grounds with white tracery, 27 large illuminated initials and 5 half-page miniatures with large initials and full illuminated borders, spaces left for two further large miniatures and initials never supplied, some early corrections to the text (lacking three leaves and a gathering of ?4 but probably no miniatures: one text leaf opening the contents of Book 1; a text leaf after f.6 with Bk I, the end of ch.4, all of ch.5 and the beginning of 6 [6-8 in the published edition: in our manuscript ch.1 opens in ch.2 of the modern edition, 'Apres la creacion de ce monde' and our rubricator omits labelling ch.3]; a text leaf after f.15 with the end of ch.18, all of ch.19 and the beginning of ch.20 [ch.19-21 in the published edition]; and a gathering of perhaps four text leaves at the end, the fourth gathering of 7 leaves with no missing text [as the modern edition suggests] but instead misbound with f.21 continuing on f.25, f.25 continuing on f.22, f.24 continuing on f.26 and ch.27 mislabelled as 28, miniatures slightly rubbed and worn, single groups of figures smudged in miniatures on ff.128 and 175v, most of lower left of miniature on f.176v badly smudged, some leaves dampstained, some creasing, a few marginal defects patched, with wide margins often preserving the prickings and guidewords for the rubricator). Binding of 18th-century French quarter mottled calf and pasteboards, spine title gilt, paper endleaves, red edges, spine a bit battered.
Provenance:
(1) Jane Delaguelle: her 17th-century signature, devices and verses in a neat italic hand on ff.21, 34, 90v and 177. On f.21 a poem in her hand reads: 'Tan plus on a de paine a chercher la victoire / Plus celuy quy la trouve en raporte de gloire / Apres un long travail le repos est plus doux / Tousiours la chosse belle est la plus malessee / Mais l'ame genereusse en doit estre enbrazee / Car le plus grand est lonneur quy nest commun a tous' and 'Je veus et ne puis vanger mon voulloir / mon desaun contrere a mon heur / Set ma devisse'. On f.34 she writes: 'Je say bien que vous aves manty na cuzes personne sy aves mal que moy laqueulle adieu / madame de ligueux je vous ayme de boncueur'. On f.90v she writes: 'Que ne suige capable meriter au tant deur / que plonge a mon ame donct vous estes vencueur / Non la mor miserable nora sur moy pouvoir / Vous mestan seceurable nous garder / Mon cueur est dentout vostre donct pouves disposer / Non le cueur aussy lame donct vous aves pouvoirs / adieu je vous dire adieu pour quelque tans / car pein ne vous verre quy ne soy le prinstans.' On f.177 she writes: 'Il nya rochier sy dur que parans ne perisse / ny cueur sy innumain que lamour namollisse'.
(2) G. Nouhen, with eighteenth-century printed bookplate.
(3) Sir Thomas Phillipps (1792-1872): his Middle Hill bookstamp with No 132 on inside upper cover. One of his earliest purchases, bought from the Paris bookseller Royez, c.1822-3 (on this see A. N. L. Munby, The Formation of the Phillipps Library up to 1840, 1954, p.145); a price 250 francs on flyleaf, and pencil notes by Phillipps inside the cover mention the MacCarthy manuscript of the same text being on the market in 1824 at 600 francs (that copy is now in New York, Morgan Library M.214-224). Phillipps sale at Sotheby's, 28 November 1967, lot 112, to:
(4) Major John Roland Abbey (1894-1969): his armorial bookplate on inside upper cover; his JA.7397 on inside lower cover. His sale at Sotheby's, 'The Catalogue of the Celebrated Library of the Late Major J. R. Abbey', 19 June 1989, lot 3025, for £93,500 to:
(5) The Schøyen Collection, MS 259.
Contents:
List of chapters for Book I (lacking opening opening leaf with prologue) ff.1-1v; Book I, opening: 'Pour mon principe ensuivir [...]' ff.2-74; prologue and list of chapters for Book II f.75; Book II ff.75v-127; prologue and list of chapters for Book III ff.127-127v; Book III ff.128-174; prologue and list of chapters for Book IV ff.174v-175; Book IV ff.175v-229v; prologue and list of chapters for Book V ff.229v-230v; Book V ff.231-294v; prologue and list of chapters for Book VI ff.294v-295v; Book VI ff.296-322v, breaking off in chapter 38 (of 42 chapters): '[...] pour le tempter affin qu'il feist mourir Onye, et pour ce faire luy [donna]'.
The Chronique de la Bouquechardière takes its name from the lordship of Bourg-Achard in Normandy held by its author, Jean de Courcy. This is a misleadingly provincial title for the enormous and ambitious chronicle of ancient history that he began to write in 1416, when too old to continue soldiering, and completed in 1422, as he explains in the Prologue. His objects were the clarification of past events, which had often been elaborated and confused by subsequent writers, and the elucidation of their moral significance. Writing as the English under Henry V conquered Normandy, Jean de Courcy may have found consolation in discerning a divine, didactic purpose in the rise and fall of empires of the past. His history is not organised strictly chronologically, although the basic division into six books corresponds to the six ages of the world as defined by Vincent of Beauvais among others: Book I follows Genesis to the peopling of the world after the Flood and then concentrates on Greece, its mythical heroes, and the ancient histories of Athens and Thebes; Book II deals with Troy; Book III with the fleeing Trojans, Aeneas and the foundation of Rome; Book IV with Babylon, from the Assyrians and Old Testament history to Ahasuerus, king of Persia; Book V with Macedonia and the conquests of Alexander; Book VI with the Maccabees and the Holy Land to the time of Christ. Within each book, a section of narrative is followed by a parallel event to reinforce the moral lesson.
The appetite for classical history in the vernacular meant that the work enjoyed considerable contemporary success, although it was only very recently that a comprehensive modern edition was published (Gauiller-Bougassas et al., 2020-2023). The text survives complete or substantially complete in 32 manuscripts; 6 partial manuscripts contain only three or four books, to which can be added 4 localisable leaves and fragments. Another Phillipps copy (his MS 24441) was sold by Christie's on 13 July 2000, lot 87. The majority of the surviving copies are vellum, with 8, unilluminated, on paper (with the exception of Paris, Bibliothèque Mazarine 1555-1557 which contains ink drawings). The table of contents which precedes these manuscripts appears in two forms: one, as in the present copy, where each Book has its own prologue and contents, and one where the prologues and contents of all six books appears at the beginning. In his 1989 description, de Hamel thought the present copy to be the only manuscript of the text to have appeared on the market since the Ashburnham Sale in 1901 (lot 301, now Morgan Library M.214-224). Written when humanist scholarship was only beginning to transform attitudes to the classical world, Jean de Courcy's history and its illustrations are telling evidence of what the educated layman knew of antiquity and why that knowledge mattered to him; there are unlikely to be many opportunities to obtain a copy of this significant work, let alone one with such a distinguished provenance.
Illumination:
Fifteen of the of the illuminated copies of the text were produced in Rouen and illuminated in the workshop of the Master of the Rouen Échevinage, who established a coherent iconographic programme for the illustration of the text. The miniatures in our copy, though, do not follow the established iconography: they are the work of a Parisian artist working in the ambit of the celebrated Maître François (fl. 1460-80), identifiable with François Barbier père. An oeuvre of around fifty manuscripts has been reconstructed for the master through comparison to his single documented work from 1475: a two-volume La Cité de Dieu, Raoul de Presles’ vernacular translation of St Augustine (Paris, Bib. Sainte-Geneviève, ms. 246). The light, clear tones, especially in the landscape, the liberal use of gold strokes to highlight, the porcelain-like complexions of the female figures and the swarthiness of the male faces are all reflect the master's individual style and execution. Some of the figures (the horseman in blue in profile on f.2, for example, with his upturned nose and projecting neck) reveal the influence of the Coëtivy Master, active in Paris from c.1450-1485 and most recently identified as Colin d'Amiens (see (F. Avril and N. Reynaud, Les manuscrits à peintures en France 1460-1520, 1993, pp.58-69). It was originally intended that each of the six books would open with a picture: those for Books V and VI were never painted but there are, unusually, two for the opening of Book IV. The subjects of the miniatures are as follows:
Folio 2. A violent battle scene, perhaps illustrating one of the conquests of Perseus at the head of the Greek army.
Folio 75v. The Sack of Troy, with the city in flames on the left and the Greek soldiers scaling its walls and executing Trojans. The miniature is interesting for its very early illustrations not only of cannons but also of hand-held firearms.
Folio 128. Queen Dido escorting Aeneas around the new buildings of Carthage, as masons work and travellers arrive.
Folio 175v. Four kings and their courts, presumably the four sons of Noah, receiving messengers and listening to their counsellors.
Folio 176v. ?Nebuchadnezzar at the head of his army receiving the surrender of four cities from civic leaders who emerge bearing silver keys.
Jean de Courcy, Chronique de la Bouquechardière, or Histoire Grecque et Romaine, in French, illuminated manuscript on vellum [Paris, c.1480]
A swashbuckling, energetically illuminated volume of Jean de Courcy's vast historical chronicle in French, containing very early illustrations of cannons and hand-held firearms.
420 x 294mm. i (paper) + 322 + i (paper) leaves, collation: 16 (of 8, lacking i and viii), 26, 37(of 8, lacking iv), 47(of 8 one leaf cancelled with no loss of text), 56, 64, 78, 86, 9-188, 196, 20-258, 26-276, 28-337(of 8 one leaf in each gathering cancelled with no loss of text), , 348, 355 (of 6, one leaf cancelled with no loss of text), 367(of 8, one leaf cancelled with no loss of text), 37-448, two columns of 48 lines, ruled space: 300 x 212mm, vertical catchwords survive, chapter headings in red, illuminated chapter initials throughout on red and blue grounds with white tracery, 27 large illuminated initials and 5 half-page miniatures with large initials and full illuminated borders, spaces left for two further large miniatures and initials never supplied, some early corrections to the text (lacking three leaves and a gathering of ?4 but probably no miniatures: one text leaf opening the contents of Book 1; a text leaf after f.6 with Bk I, the end of ch.4, all of ch.5 and the beginning of 6 [6-8 in the published edition: in our manuscript ch.1 opens in ch.2 of the modern edition, 'Apres la creacion de ce monde' and our rubricator omits labelling ch.3]; a text leaf after f.15 with the end of ch.18, all of ch.19 and the beginning of ch.20 [ch.19-21 in the published edition]; and a gathering of perhaps four text leaves at the end, the fourth gathering of 7 leaves with no missing text [as the modern edition suggests] but instead misbound with f.21 continuing on f.25, f.25 continuing on f.22, f.24 continuing on f.26 and ch.27 mislabelled as 28, miniatures slightly rubbed and worn, single groups of figures smudged in miniatures on ff.128 and 175v, most of lower left of miniature on f.176v badly smudged, some leaves dampstained, some creasing, a few marginal defects patched, with wide margins often preserving the prickings and guidewords for the rubricator). Binding of 18th-century French quarter mottled calf and pasteboards, spine title gilt, paper endleaves, red edges, spine a bit battered.
Provenance:
(1) Jane Delaguelle: her 17th-century signature, devices and verses in a neat italic hand on ff.21, 34, 90v and 177. On f.21 a poem in her hand reads: 'Tan plus on a de paine a chercher la victoire / Plus celuy quy la trouve en raporte de gloire / Apres un long travail le repos est plus doux / Tousiours la chosse belle est la plus malessee / Mais l'ame genereusse en doit estre enbrazee / Car le plus grand est lonneur quy nest commun a tous' and 'Je veus et ne puis vanger mon voulloir / mon desaun contrere a mon heur / Set ma devisse'. On f.34 she writes: 'Je say bien que vous aves manty na cuzes personne sy aves mal que moy laqueulle adieu / madame de ligueux je vous ayme de boncueur'. On f.90v she writes: 'Que ne suige capable meriter au tant deur / que plonge a mon ame donct vous estes vencueur / Non la mor miserable nora sur moy pouvoir / Vous mestan seceurable nous garder / Mon cueur est dentout vostre donct pouves disposer / Non le cueur aussy lame donct vous aves pouvoirs / adieu je vous dire adieu pour quelque tans / car pein ne vous verre quy ne soy le prinstans.' On f.177 she writes: 'Il nya rochier sy dur que parans ne perisse / ny cueur sy innumain que lamour namollisse'.
(2) G. Nouhen, with eighteenth-century printed bookplate.
(3) Sir Thomas Phillipps (1792-1872): his Middle Hill bookstamp with No 132 on inside upper cover. One of his earliest purchases, bought from the Paris bookseller Royez, c.1822-3 (on this see A. N. L. Munby, The Formation of the Phillipps Library up to 1840, 1954, p.145); a price 250 francs on flyleaf, and pencil notes by Phillipps inside the cover mention the MacCarthy manuscript of the same text being on the market in 1824 at 600 francs (that copy is now in New York, Morgan Library M.214-224). Phillipps sale at Sotheby's, 28 November 1967, lot 112, to:
(4) Major John Roland Abbey (1894-1969): his armorial bookplate on inside upper cover; his JA.7397 on inside lower cover. His sale at Sotheby's, 'The Catalogue of the Celebrated Library of the Late Major J. R. Abbey', 19 June 1989, lot 3025, for £93,500 to:
(5) The Schøyen Collection, MS 259.
Contents:
List of chapters for Book I (lacking opening opening leaf with prologue) ff.1-1v; Book I, opening: 'Pour mon principe ensuivir [...]' ff.2-74; prologue and list of chapters for Book II f.75; Book II ff.75v-127; prologue and list of chapters for Book III ff.127-127v; Book III ff.128-174; prologue and list of chapters for Book IV ff.174v-175; Book IV ff.175v-229v; prologue and list of chapters for Book V ff.229v-230v; Book V ff.231-294v; prologue and list of chapters for Book VI ff.294v-295v; Book VI ff.296-322v, breaking off in chapter 38 (of 42 chapters): '[...] pour le tempter affin qu'il feist mourir Onye, et pour ce faire luy [donna]'.
The Chronique de la Bouquechardière takes its name from the lordship of Bourg-Achard in Normandy held by its author, Jean de Courcy. This is a misleadingly provincial title for the enormous and ambitious chronicle of ancient history that he began to write in 1416, when too old to continue soldiering, and completed in 1422, as he explains in the Prologue. His objects were the clarification of past events, which had often been elaborated and confused by subsequent writers, and the elucidation of their moral significance. Writing as the English under Henry V conquered Normandy, Jean de Courcy may have found consolation in discerning a divine, didactic purpose in the rise and fall of empires of the past. His history is not organised strictly chronologically, although the basic division into six books corresponds to the six ages of the world as defined by Vincent of Beauvais among others: Book I follows Genesis to the peopling of the world after the Flood and then concentrates on Greece, its mythical heroes, and the ancient histories of Athens and Thebes; Book II deals with Troy; Book III with the fleeing Trojans, Aeneas and the foundation of Rome; Book IV with Babylon, from the Assyrians and Old Testament history to Ahasuerus, king of Persia; Book V with Macedonia and the conquests of Alexander; Book VI with the Maccabees and the Holy Land to the time of Christ. Within each book, a section of narrative is followed by a parallel event to reinforce the moral lesson.
The appetite for classical history in the vernacular meant that the work enjoyed considerable contemporary success, although it was only very recently that a comprehensive modern edition was published (Gauiller-Bougassas et al., 2020-2023). The text survives complete or substantially complete in 32 manuscripts; 6 partial manuscripts contain only three or four books, to which can be added 4 localisable leaves and fragments. Another Phillipps copy (his MS 24441) was sold by Christie's on 13 July 2000, lot 87. The majority of the surviving copies are vellum, with 8, unilluminated, on paper (with the exception of Paris, Bibliothèque Mazarine 1555-1557 which contains ink drawings). The table of contents which precedes these manuscripts appears in two forms: one, as in the present copy, where each Book has its own prologue and contents, and one where the prologues and contents of all six books appears at the beginning. In his 1989 description, de Hamel thought the present copy to be the only manuscript of the text to have appeared on the market since the Ashburnham Sale in 1901 (lot 301, now Morgan Library M.214-224). Written when humanist scholarship was only beginning to transform attitudes to the classical world, Jean de Courcy's history and its illustrations are telling evidence of what the educated layman knew of antiquity and why that knowledge mattered to him; there are unlikely to be many opportunities to obtain a copy of this significant work, let alone one with such a distinguished provenance.
Illumination:
Fifteen of the of the illuminated copies of the text were produced in Rouen and illuminated in the workshop of the Master of the Rouen Échevinage, who established a coherent iconographic programme for the illustration of the text. The miniatures in our copy, though, do not follow the established iconography: they are the work of a Parisian artist working in the ambit of the celebrated Maître François (fl. 1460-80), identifiable with François Barbier père. An oeuvre of around fifty manuscripts has been reconstructed for the master through comparison to his single documented work from 1475: a two-volume La Cité de Dieu, Raoul de Presles’ vernacular translation of St Augustine (Paris, Bib. Sainte-Geneviève, ms. 246). The light, clear tones, especially in the landscape, the liberal use of gold strokes to highlight, the porcelain-like complexions of the female figures and the swarthiness of the male faces are all reflect the master's individual style and execution. Some of the figures (the horseman in blue in profile on f.2, for example, with his upturned nose and projecting neck) reveal the influence of the Coëtivy Master, active in Paris from c.1450-1485 and most recently identified as Colin d'Amiens (see (F. Avril and N. Reynaud, Les manuscrits à peintures en France 1460-1520, 1993, pp.58-69). It was originally intended that each of the six books would open with a picture: those for Books V and VI were never painted but there are, unusually, two for the opening of Book IV. The subjects of the miniatures are as follows:
Folio 2. A violent battle scene, perhaps illustrating one of the conquests of Perseus at the head of the Greek army.
Folio 75v. The Sack of Troy, with the city in flames on the left and the Greek soldiers scaling its walls and executing Trojans. The miniature is interesting for its very early illustrations not only of cannons but also of hand-held firearms.
Folio 128. Queen Dido escorting Aeneas around the new buildings of Carthage, as masons work and travellers arrive.
Folio 175v. Four kings and their courts, presumably the four sons of Noah, receiving messengers and listening to their counsellors.
Folio 176v. ?Nebuchadnezzar at the head of his army receiving the surrender of four cities from civic leaders who emerge bearing silver keys.
Literature
Gauiller-Bougassasean, C. et al., eds., Jean de de Courcy, La Bouquechardière, vols I-VII, 2020-2023), pp.102, 152-154.
Brought to you by
Eugenio Donadoni
Senior Specialist, Medieval & Renaissance Manuscripts