An introduction to British Library MS Lansdowne 380.

INTRODUCTION

The British Library manuscript Lansdowne 380 (hereinafter Lans 380) is a quarto volume comprised of 280 paper folios, measuring 210 cm x 145 cm. It was re-bound in 1970, so the original binding, which might have given some clue to the manuscript's provenance, is now lost. It is of unknown provenance and date, although it is generally assumed to have been written somewhere in France during the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century. Scholars interested in the poetry of Charles, duc d' Orleans (1394-1465), have long known of the manuscript, and it has also been of interest to musicologists studying the secular French chanson of the fifteenth century, since in 1929 Norbert Hardy Wallis published an edition of a selection of its sixty song texts. (1) Very little else, however, is actually known about the manuscript, since no study of it has ever appeared in print, and the only inventory of its contents appears in the British Library catalog of its holdings of the Lansdowne collection. (2) That inventory is really only a listing of the longest items occurring in the manuscript, however, and in many cases simply reiterates the rubric given for an item, which is not always enlightening. One of the most extended discussions of Lans 380 in the secondary literature is a brief description of the manuscript by Pierre Champion in 1913, as part of a larger discussion of the influence that the poetry of Charles d'Orleans had on the creation of song poetry during the fifteenth century. (3) It will be useful to give his brief comments in full:

 
  The manuscript Lansdowne 380 is a small, paper volume, written in 
  France by several hands during the second half of the fifteenth 
  century; it was already in England in the first half of the sixteenth 
  century, since there is written, on the first flyleaf, in a 
  handwriting of that time: 'by the leysurles hand de nouster [sic] 
  pover serviteur Thomas Kendall.' (4) 

As will be seen, there are problems with Champion's assessment, although it is probably true that the manuscript was written during the second half of the fifteenth century.

A single bifolium serves as protective flyleaves at the beginning of the volume; following this, there is a succession of thirty-four fascicles of lengths varying from six through ten leaves in the resulting collation: [l.sup.10], [2.sup.8], 3-[4.sup.7]: [5.sup.9], 6-[7.sup.8]: [8.sup.10], 9-[10.sup.8]: [1l.sup.10], [12.sup.6], [13.sup.10], [14.sup.6], 15-[16.sup.9]: 17-[18.sup.6]: 19-[26.sup.8]: [27.sup.6], [28.sup.10], [29.sup.6], [30.sup.10], [31.sup.6], [32.sup.10], [33.sup.6], [34.sup.8]. There are two main watermarks to be found throughout Lans 380: a bull's head with surmounting "X," and a forked, barred, Gothic letter "P" crowned by a fleuron. Although these watermarks occur quite commonly throughout Europe during the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, it has not been possible to establish a corresponding match for either of them in the main sources for identifying watermarks of the Middle Ages. (5) What they do reveal about Lans 380, however, is that since they alternate regularly throughout the manuscript, the manuscript was essentially written all of a piece rather than in stages. Beginning with what is currently folio 13r of fascicle 2, the scribe wrote essentially nonstop to the end of the manuscript, at which point he wrote fascicle 1, which he inserted at the front of the manuscript, rather than at the end. He chose to place it at the beginning of the volume most likely because the fascicle's contents, being religious, moralistic, and liturgical in nature, were a better fit with the similar contents of the first half of Lans 380 than with the more utilitarian and entertainment-oriented texts of the second half of the volume.

There are two other watermarks occurring within the leaves of Lans 380: on folio 7 there appears a small crown with a trefoil, while on folio 8 one can see the partial watermark of a "J P" and a heart. On folio 94, the front half of a forward-facing dog appears, surmounted by a fleuron. These two watermarks are partially obscured by the volume's gutter, but enough is visible to suggest that the "J P" with its heart and facing crown is similar to Briquet "Coeur" 4324. (6) This watermark has been dated to paper produced during the 1480s and 1490s by the mills of Jean Lebe, Le Ber, Le Bez or Le Bey of Troyes, in the Champagne region of France. (7) The dog watermark, although not a match, is most like Briquet "Chien" 3628, which has appeared in documents dating from the 1480s. (8)

As stated above, this first fascicle was actually the last one to be written. Fascicle 2, which was originally meant to open the manuscript, was not only the first to be written, but apparently sat on top of the stack of fascicles as they were completed, one by one, since its appearance is slightly grimier than that of the other fascicles. It was also meant to be something of a self-contained unit, since its contents fill the entire fascicle, and the scribe took more care with the opening Lombard initials of its paragraphs, enlarging and slightly decorating them with interior filigree as well as alternating their colors between blue and red. Fascicle 2 is the only self-contained "booklet" in the entire manuscript, the scribe having continued his texts across fascicles without a break. (9) The scribe also was inconsistent in his alternation of blue and red Lombard initial letters--the pattern breaks at folio 82v with a blue initial for the Quatuor novis-sima (catalog no. 26). (10) After this point, there is a combined red and blue initial "J" of "Je fus indigne serviteur," the first line of George Chastellain's Miroir de mort (catalog no. 27), on folio 95r; a blue initial on 95r for "Pour au miroir de mort venir" of the same work; and a single blue "Q" on folio 269r for "Quant nostre seigneur dieu eust fait lomme a sa semblance" (the incipit of a redaction of the Liber de sinthomatibus mulierum, catalog no. 158).