Medieval Illuminated Trash? Two Roman de la Rose Fragments
The Roman de la Rose was by far the most popular and influential medieval secular poem written in the Old French vernacular. Begun in 1230 by Guillaume de Lorris and finished in 1280 by Jean de Meun, some 320 extant manuscripts survive, whether complete or as substantial fragments, largely from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries—many beautifully illuminated, many others reproduced as unadorned utilitarian text manuscripts. The archetypal allegorical dream vision, the Roman de la Rose constituted the high-water mark in the deeply philosophical, psychological, and moralizing literature of courtly love that was filled with personifications of virtues and vices and the best advice on how to become a virtuous lover. Its impact on subsequent medieval literary production was profound; from Dante and Petrarch in Italy, to Guillaume de Machaut and Jean Froissart in France, to John Gower and Geoffrey Chaucer in England, no secular poetry can be said not to owe some debt to this remarkable masterpiece.
From the early days of digitization of rare book and manuscript collections, the Sheridan Libraries at Johns Hopkins helped lead the way with the production, in collaboration with the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, of the Roman de la Rose Digital Library, which hosts over one-third of all known manuscripts. Ironically however, JHU owned not a single Roman de la Rose manuscript until two leaves, recycled as binding waste, showed up at a small London auction in recent years. These were successfully acquired and have been studied in detail by Claire Konieczny, a doctoral candidate in the French division of the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at JHU.
Left: Bodleian Library, Douce MS 332
Right: JHU, Rose Fragments
Bodleian Library, Douce MS 332
JHU, Rose Fragments
These Hopkins Rose fragments likely date from the late fourteenth or early fifteenth centuries. Though their precise origins remain unclear, both come from the same volume and are written in the same bâtarde secretary script. Rarely do binding waste fragments contain illustrations and illuminations (see, e.g., JHU’s early fifteenth-century binding waste fragment of Petrarch’s Trionfo della morte), though both are present in the form of finely gilt initial letters to two small miniatures depicting canonical scenes in the history of Rose early manuscript illustration: “Narcissus at the Fountain” and “The Lover Paying Homage to the God of Love.” These appear to be hand drawn and colored with pen-wash ink. While most of the original color has faded due to wear and damage, there are still remnants of pigments, most notably the blue in the fountain of Narcissus and the green of the verdant foliage in both miniatures. The composition of the trees and orientation of Narcissus gazing at his reflection in the fountain would also seem to suggest a fairly close familial relationship to Bodleian Library Douce MS 332.
—Kelsey Champagne, Earle Havens
Bibliography
Herman Braet, Nouvelle Bibliographie du Roman de la Rose (Peeters, 2017); John V. Fleming, Roman de la Rose: A Study in Allegory and Iconography (Princeton University Press, 2015), esp.13–42; Fabienne Pomel, “Visual Experiences and Allegorical Fiction: The Lexis and Paradigm of Fantasie in Jean de Meun’s Rose,” in Jonathan Morton (ed.), The ‘Roman de la Rose’ and Thirteenth-Century Thought (Cambridge University Press, 2020), 45–64; Karlheinz Stierle, “Le ‘Roman de la Rose’ de Guillaum de Lorris Est-Il un Fragment?” Zeitschrift für französische Sprache und Literatur 122:3 (2012), 259–277. See also: https://dlmm.library.jhu.edu/en/digital-library-of-medieval-manuscripts/.
