Frere Laurent d'Orleans

Medieval Manuscript.- Laurent d'Orleans (Frere) La Somme le Roi, ou Livre des Vices et des Virtus, illuminated manuscript on vellum, in French, 134 ff., complete, collation: i6, ii-xvii8, catchwords, ruled in red, at the end of all but the first gathering, first f (list of contents) detached and mounted, last f blank, also with one vellum fly-leaf at beginning and two at end, double column, 32 lines, written in black ink in an angular gothic hand, large initial cut out of second f (the beginning of the text) with loss (presumably) of a miniature or large initial and of text on verso, but leaving most of a three-quarter bar border, decorated with flowers or leaves and a small tree in colours and gilt bezants, and with pen-and-ink figures of a rabbit being pursued by a hound added at the foot, several hundred 2 or 3-line initials in red or blue, many decorated in the contrasting colour, the decoration extending up or down the margins, chapter headings in red, rubrics in red or blue, line fillers in red, several original flaws in the vellum, one or two repaired, lower corner of first half-dozen ff frayed, first few ff. rubbed with loss of text, wrinkled throughout and with marking and staining, nineteenth-century dark red morocco, spine gilt-lettered, covers ruled in blind, gilt inner dentelles, little rubbed & scuffed, marbled endpapers, 4to, 225 x 165 mm., [France], [late 13th or early 14th century]. ⁂ Laurent d'Orléans, Dominican confessor to Philip III 'the Bold', of France, was commissioned by his master to write this manual of religious and moral behaviour for the king's children in 1279, though dates given in early manuscripts differ, and this one has 1297. The work, also known as Le Miroir du Monde, was popular in France through the Middle Ages and translated into several European languages, including English, being printed by Caxton as The Book Ryal in c. 1486. This manuscript is an early one, written within a couple of decades of the work's composition. Contents: f1v list of contents. f2r Le Somme le Roi, ending f123r, f124r unidentified prayers or devotional work beginning 'Ha dit il qui donrat (?) amo[r] chief confort...', ending f133v, f134 blank. The unidentified scribe has added wry leonine verses at the end of both parts: (f123v) 'Finito libro laus [et] gl[ori]a [christo] Detur pro pena scriptori pulcra puella' [= The book is finished. Praise and glory to Christ. The scribe deserves a pretty girl for his trouble]; (f 133v) 'Explicit iste liber scriptor sit crimine liber' [= The book is finished; may the scribe be free from blame].