The Chansonnier d'Arras is an illuminated manuscript of the late 13th century containing a variety of religious and philosophical texts and songs in 220 folios.[1] It is written in the Picard dialect of Old French.[2] It is now manuscript 657 (formerly 139) in the municipal library of Arras. In trouvère studies, it is known by the conventional siglum A.[3]
Production and provenance
Two scribal hands are responsible for the text and one for the musical notation, which was added last. A scribe named Jehans d'Amiens li petis signed and dated the last work in August 1278.[3] It is possible that the chansonnier section was only added in the early 14th century.[1] The manuscript is a product of Artois, possibly Amiens. It belonged to the Abbey of Saint-Vaast by about 1625, but was seized by the government during the French Revolution in 1790.[3] A facsimile of the manuscript was published in 1926 by Alfred Jeanroy, who detected that some pages were out of order.[1] The manuscript was rebound by the Bibliothèque nationale de France in 1955.[3]
Contents
Although the entire manuscript is commonly called a chansonnier, only the middle section truly fits that description.[1] The manuscript can be divided into three sections. The first 128 folios are devoted to religious, philosophical and ethical texts.[3] A rubric on the first folio identifies the works which follow as philosophy and morality. These include the poem Le Livre de philosophie et de moralité [fr]. On folio 32, an explicit announces the end of the first part. It is followed by some Marian texts (including a paraphrase of the Ave Maria), a series of saint's legends and Richart de Fournival's Bestiaire d'Amour. There are some lacunae in this section.[4]