The Illustrated Lancelot Prose: Essays on the Lancelot of Yale 229 (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Illustrated Lancelot Prose: Essays on the Lancelot of Yale 229 Sophie Cassagnes-Brouquet Elizabeth Moore Willingham , ed., The Illustrated Lancelot Prose: Essays on the Lancelot of Yale 229, Turnhout: Brepols, 2007. Pp. ix, 135. 74 color plates. ISBN: 978–2–503–51677–6. Price: $81.00. This book is the result of a collective work aroused by the discovery of a splendid manuscript, MS Yale 229, kept for a long time in a private collection, before entering the Yale University Library in the 1950s. After the edition of the text, and the studies by R. Howard Bloch and Alison Stones on the manuscript, a research seminar has grouped scholars of medieval literature, linguistics, and art, wishing to explore the cultural and social context of the production of the text and the imagery of Yale 229. This manuscript contains the three last texts of the Prose Lancelot : Agrauain, La Queste del saint Graal, La Mort le roi Artu. The book was copied and illuminated during the last quarter of the 13th century in Northern France. Lynn T. Ramey proposes the hypothesis of a command from the count of Flanders, Guy de Dampierre, in rebellion against his suzerain, Philippe IV le Bel. The interest of this great lord in La Mort le roi Artu seems quite logical in the particular troubled context of Flanders at that time. Ronald E. Pepin wonders about the attribution of the manuscript to Walter Map, five times named in the manuscript and depicted in an illustration. Nancy B. Black shows how the illustration is used to stress space and time and also to comment on the events of the romance. The main illustrations order the text and the marginalia invite the reader to interactions with other texts. This imagery offers to the reader time for personal thinking. Joan E. McRae and William Nelles wonder about the creation of the iconographic program. Because of its early dating, Yale 229 has few precedents. The painters had to compose an innovative program on the basis of a stock of images, derived, for example, from biblical scenes. The double miniatures give rhythm to the text, but the marginalia also comment on the text, even if these comments are sometimes difficult to interpret. Virginie Greene proposes a comparison between the Lancelot studied by Jean Frappier (Paris, Arsenal, MS 3347) and Yale 229 in order to understand how the scribes worked. This very precise study allows her to show how the style is worked and reworked by the scribes. For example, the Yale 229 scribe is notable for a tendency to compress the text. The choice is one of concision; however, dialogues are more vivid. In fact, there is no ideal standard; each scribe develops his own sensibility. R. Howard Bloch underlines the obsessional presence of animals in Yale 229. Beasts are present in the margins—real or unreal, domestic or wild animals, hybrids—but also in larger illuminations, showing a real interweaving between the human and animal worlds. The aim of this would seem to be to offer a commentary on the animal and the human, on the distinction between senses and reason. Stacey L. Hahn analyses the different uses of beds in Yale 229. Four types of beds are distinguished: the simple bed used for sleep, the death bed, the travelling bed and the social bed used for various social functions: rest, games or conversation. Her article demonstrates the great diversity of functions and symbolic meanings of beds in the text. [End Page 103] Walter Blue is interested in the links between marginalia and larger illustrations. The full illumination announces the fall of the Arthurian world, the instability of the world in general, and the inevitability of fate. Death is omnipresent in La Mort Artu; the marginalia reinforce this idea. To conclude this collection Elizabeth Moore Willingham focuses on the medieval quest for truth as suggested through signs and allegories. This is one of the keys to understanding Yale 229. She underlines the patron's role as well. This manuscript is as big and richly illuminated as a liturgical book and was therefore an object of great value. The gaze of the beholder is attracted by the initials...