Details

Form/Genre:

Codices.
Romances (document genre)
Manuscripts, Medieval.
Manuscripts, French.

Language:

Old French.

Summary:

The French romance of the Seven Sages of Rome in a prose version and its sequel, Marques of Rome. The Seven Sages of Rome is a collection of stories framed by a narrative in which the wicked empress of Rome attempts to persuade her husband the emperor to put his son to death. The Seven Sages, who are the young prince's teachers, tell the emperor stories to persuade him not to do so. In Marques of Rome, Mark, son of one of the Seven Sages, becomes the seneschal of the prince of the earlier romance, who has succeeded his father as emperor.

Contents:

1. f.1r-34r: Roman de sept sages de Rome.
2. f.39r-142v: Roman de Mark de Rome.

Notes:

Ms. codex.
Title of first work from explicit (f. 34r); title of second work from later spine, now removed.
Foliation: Parchment, 142; 1-22, 24-34, 39-68, 69-73, 73-82, 83-91, 93-100, 100-110, 112-117, 119-142; later foliation in ink, upper right recto; later pagination in ink, [1-5], lower outer corner. According to the foliation, f. 2, 39, 67, 68, 82, and 142 are fragments and 23, 35-38, 92, 111 and 118 appear to be completely missing. The whole codex is a fragment of a larger work, so f. 1 and f. 142 are not true first and last pages.
Decoration: Red rubrics; blue 2-line initials with red ornamentation after rubrics, with simple blue and red decorations at the left margin of pages with initials.
Binding: Pulled from 19th-century pasteboards (Zacour-Hirsch).
Origin: Written in France, ca. 1350 (Zacour-Hirsch).

Penn Provenance:

Formerly owned by Sir Thomas Phillipps, ms. 3679 (stamp, inside upper cover).
Formerly owned by Bertram, Earl of Ashburnham; sold in the Ashburnham collection at auction at Sotheby's, 10 June 1901, lot 401.
Appears in Maggs Bros. catalog 687 (March 1940), no. 194.
Appears in William H. Robinson Ltd. catalog 84 (1954), no. 284.
Sold by Laurence Witten, 1954.

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. 56-57 (Ms. French 14).
Bibliography of published editions of other versions and analysis of the Seven Sages cycle in Bossuat, R. Manuel bibliographique de la littérature française du moyen age (Melun, 1951), p. 132-133.

Cited as:

UPenn Ms. Codex 931

Contributor:

Phillipps, Thomas, Sir, 1792-1872, former owner.
Ashburnham, Bertram Ashburnham, Earl of, 1797-1878, former owner.

Contains:

Seven sages of Rome.
Marques de Rome.
Roman de Mark de Rome.

OCLC:

155925623

Access Restriction:

Access to this item is restricted.