L’empreinte de l’auteur dans les manuscrits BnF, Fr. 9343-9344: Une proposition d’attribution du Roman de Buscalus à Jean Wauquelin

Abstract

The fifteenth century Roman de Buscalus is dedicated to the duke of Burgundy Philip the Good. Its only nearly complete copy is contained in the manuscripts BnF, Fr. 9343-9344, which have been transcribed and illuminated in the workshop of the Wavrin Master. The text has until now been considered anonymous ; the author’s name cannot be found in the textual tradition. However, a body of evidence can be gathered from the BnF, Fr. 9343-9344, which allows to propose an authorial attribution to the clerk Jean Wauquelin, the duke’s writer. To mention the two most significant evidences : though the first folio of the copy is mutilated, the remaining fragments of the prologue bear striking resemblance with the beginning of works attributed with certainty to Jean Wauquelin, especially the Chroniques de Hainaut. Secondly, what’s left of the dedication miniature painted by the Wavrin Master can be linked with other miniatures ordered by Wauquelin, in particular the famous frontispiece painted by Rogier van der Weyden to illustrate the Chroniques de Hainaut.