London, British Library, Harley 4419
[Part 1]
General information
| Folios | 168 |
| Folio notes: | About twenty folios lost after f. 20 (Micha 1963, 50). One (or two) additional folio(s) lost after f. 168. |
| Language | Language object (48) |
| Approx. date | c. 1300 |
| Date notes | Date suggested by the Lancelot-Graal project is c. 1280 to 1300. Micha 1963, 48 gives 14th c. Arthurian Fiction has 1350-1400. The BL Catalogue of Illuminated MS also has second half of the 14th c. The writing would support a date at the beginning of the 14th c. |
| Place(s) of production | Northern ItalyThe Lancelot-Graal project suggests Genoa. Micha 1963, 50 gives South of France or Italy. Arthurian Fiction has South of France. The BL Catalogue of Illuminated MS tentatively puts forward Northern Italy. Although some elements of the paratextual programme are similar to those found in the Genoa-Pisa group, differences may point towards a different origin or later date. |
| First words of second recto folio | [f. 2ra] tre qil se pasme Avant lanc(elot) le / |
| First words of last recto folio | [f.168ra] brisiees il se fussent entra battu. Il / |
| Incipit | [f. 1ra] Or sen uet / Galehot / antre lui / (et) son com / paignon / liez et do / lenz iez / de ce que / ses com / pains sen vet avec lui dolenz de / ce quil est remes de la mesnie (et) le / roi artus . qar parce le cuide il a / voir perdu a toz iorz (et) il avoit (et) / mis son cuer en lui outre ce que / nus cuers dome ne porroit penser / a amer autre home estrange de / loial compaignie . Ne a ceste cho / |
| Explicit | [f. 168vb] car il ne pensoit arriens fors a cele / dont il atendoit sa ioieetcomil / lavoit fi li fet tote la ioie queil / pueet Qant il ont grant piece / demore ensemble si est efueistiez / li amis a la damoiselecomdesten / di ses brazettasta entor lui que / il cui |
Material
| Material: | Material object (4) |
| Watermark: | |
| Condition: | Fair quality vellum. Folios 85 to 90 are damaged at the edges. Fol. 140 has sustained severe damage in the upper right corner, f. 141 is damaged in the lower right corner. The ink on f. 1r and 1. 168v has faded, which suggests that the volume was kept without proper binding. Affected by damp on f.29, text retraced. |
Structure
| Collation: | 1-1010 11-138 13-1710 181+1+2 |
| Quire structure: | Most of the gatherings are quinions. Quires 11 to 13 are quaternions. The final quire has four folios: two singletons and a bifolium. This may suggest that not one, but two quires were lost at the end of the MS. |
| Quire marks: | MSQuiremarkDisposition object (35) |
| Catchwords: | |
| Catchword disposition: | MSCatchwordDisposition object (9) |
Physical description
| General description: | |
| No. of illustrations: | 1 |
| General illustration: | One historiated initial (f. 1ra, height: 9 lines), gold against blue and ochre grounds, portraying a seated king. |
| General decoration: | Partial border (f. 1ra), with acanthus in dark and pale blue, yellow, ochre and dark green, supporting a crane. At the bottom two vignettes, portraying human figures from the waste up. Puzzle initials (height: 7-8 lines) , red and blue with pen decoration in the same colours. Paragraphs (height: 2 lines) marked with pen-decorated initials, added in the margin, alternatingly blue and red with flourishings in the other colour. |
| Evidence of readership: | On f. 1r, in the outer margin, in a 15th- or 16th-c hand: '??Galehat??''. References in pencil to the 1513 edition on ff. 31r, 139v, 166v, 168v. Notes in cursive hand in the upper right corner of f. 80v, in the lower margin of f. 153r and on f. 166v. |
| Foliations description: | Modern foliation in arabic numerals in the upper right corner of the recto. |
Mise en page
| Description 1 | |
| Page sampled | f. 115 r |
| Layout | None |
| Page dimensions | 333x230 (mm) |
| Justification | 250x146 (mm) |
| Columns | 215mm between columns Column ruling present in Colours object (9) |
| Lines | 45Line ruling present in Colours object (9) |
| Rubrication | |
| Writing above top line? | False |
| Sample page layout: | |
Hand(s)
| Level of Execution: | Execution object (4) |
| Script | Script object (16) |
| Folio range | From f. 1ra to f. 168vb |
| Date | c. 1300 |
| Scribe description: | Round southern textualis. Two-compartment 'a' with open upper compartment, 'e' with tongue only in final position, limb of 'h' does not extend below the baseline, trailing 's' at the end of the line; I marked with dash, mostly round 's', but sometimes also straight 's' in final position. Many instances of fusion, also including less common combinations such as 'pa' and 'da'. Abbreviations include uncrossed tironian 'et', 'com'-abbreviation, nasal bar, 'p' with crossed descender, superscript vowels ('a'), apostrophe. 'st'-ligature. Punctus. |
| Notes | ff. 68v. and 69 written in lighter ink, possibly part of the text (e.g. f. 29) has been retraced. |