The Paper of London, British Library, Royal Manuscript 18 B II

Abstract

British Library, Royal Manuscript 18 B II is the earliest and most complete surviving witness to the Middle English prose Melusine.1 It is a single-text codex about which very little is known prior to the 17th century. The text is presented in single columns with wide margins and written in an elegant secretary hand on chancery paper folded in folio. The main text and the capitula seem to be the work of a single scribe, likely professional. There are spaces left for initials two or three lines in height and half-page miniatures, though these were never filled. While the most commonly cited date of production for the Middle English prose Melusine is circa 1500, no concrete evidence justifying this estimation is currently available. Robert Nolan argues in his doctoral thesis that the work was translated from the first edition of Jean d’Arras’s Mélusine, which was printed by Adam Steinschaber in Geneva in August 1478.2 This hypothesis is based on the number and placement of the capitula in Royal MS 18 B II, which correspond to those found in the Geneva edition.3 There are also numerous passages in the English translation which diverge from the majority of manuscript versions of the French Mélusine, but which correspond almost exactly to the text produced by Steinschaber. More recently, Lydia Zeldenrust has concurred that Steinschaber’s edition, or another incunable very close to it, was the source for the Middle English Melusine.4