Details

Standardized Title:

Somme des vices et vertus

Subjects:

Christian ethics -- History -- Middle Ages, 600-1500.
Christian ethics.
History.
Christian women -- Conduct of life.
Vices -- Early works to 1800.
Vices.
Virtues -- Early works to 1800.
Virtues.

Form/Genre:

Codices.
Manuscripts, Medieval.

Language:

Middle French.

Summary:

Comprised of two works, both fragments, in one hand: Somme des vices et vertus, also known as Somme le roi of Frère Laurent (f. 1-64, 85); and Miroir des bonnes femmes (f. 65-84); plus a short text on what is now the final folio, Comment l'en se doit avoir a la messe (f. 84v).

Notes:

Ms. codex.
Title for manuscript from title for predominant work supplied by cataloger (Zacour-Hirsch); title for second work, Miroir des bonnes femmes, also supplied (Grigsby).
Collation: Parchment, iii (modern paper) + 85 + ii (modern paper); 1⁴ 2¹² (-1, -12) 3¹² 4⁸ 5¹² 6¹² (-1) 7⁸ (-2) 8¹² (-1, -2) 9¹² (-11, -12) singleton; [1-85]; modern foliation in pencil, upper right recto. Foliation in this record diverges from that in Grisgsby articles, written at a time when the manuscript was foliated with a leaf skipped, 1-23, i, 24-84. Link to collation model at end of record.
Layout: Written in one hand, in one column, usually 31 lines.
Decoration: Rubricated, with alternating red and blue capitals.
Binding: Late 19th- or 20th-century vellum. (Misbound: f. 1-4 should follow f. 29 in the middle of the fourth quire (f. 27-34), f. 85 should follow f. 64.).
Origin: Written in France, circa 1300. Date 1279 (f. 85r) is date of composition.
Attribution from colophon: Cest livre compila et parfist uns freres des prescheeurs a la request du roi de france phelipe. En lan de lincarnacion nostre Seigneur...M.CC.lxxix (f. 85r).
Scribe has added marginal notes and headings; there are other occassional notes in a 15th-century hand.
First parts of the Somme are missing, text begins in the chapter on greed. A few other leaves are missing from text.
First and last leaves of Miroir des bonnes femmes are missing, text begins just before the beginning of Eve's fourth folly, "fol regart," looking at the tree of forbidden fruit, continues through the 35 examples of bad women, and breaks off in the first example of good women, also Eve.
Headings in upper outer corners of manuscript identify sections for "des males fames" and "des bones fames" (f. 65r-84v).

Penn Provenance:

Sold by Laurence Witten, 1959.
Gift of Lessing J. Rosenwald, not before 1961.

Cited in:

Described in Zacour, Norman P. and Hirsch, Rudolf. Catalogue of Manuscripts in the Libraries of the University of Pennsylvania to 1800 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1965), p. 59 (Ms. French 32).

Publications about:

Manuscript described fully and text of Miroir des bonnes femmes analyzed by John L. Grigsby, "Miroir des bonnes femmes," Romania 82 (1961), pp. 458-481, and in vol. 83 (1962), pp. 30-51. A copy is in the library's files.

Cited as:

UPenn Ms. Codex 659

Contains:

Miroir des bonnes femmes.
Comment l'en se doit avoir a la messe.

OCLC:

155985336

Web link:

Collation model