The Bodleian Library in Oxford still has many secrets to unravel.
Tamara Atkin of Queen Mary University in London was researching the reuse of books there in the 16th century when, by chance, she came across a fragment of a French poem from the 12th century, reports
The Guardian
.
This excerpt comes from the
Siege of Orange
, which was thought to have disappeared forever, and was found in the binding of a book published in 1528. This poem, which comes from a cycle of songs of gesture, poems epic narratives, about William of Orange had almost become a legend.
Scholars were convinced of its existence but had no physical proof of it.
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The fragment is only 47 lines long, but it proves that this poem existed. Although it was composed at the end of the 12th century, this extract comes from a copy made in England at the end of the 13th century. The poem tells of some events of the 9th century, under the reign of Louis the Pious, son and heir of Charlemagne. The few translated lines take place as Bertram pleads with the king for help in relieving the siege of Orange, thus describing the dire conditions of operations. “
In the rest of the fragment, we hear him berating the queen, who objected to her husband leading a relief army south,
” says Tamara Atkin.
Philipp Bennet, William of Orange expert at the University of Edinburgh, translated the excerpt as follows:
“He asks him: 'How are things going with him?
"
/" Unfortunately, "said Count Bertram. / Your brother has no bread, wheat, or wine; / He has no provisions to save himself, / Except for a basin of blood , which I left him. ”
"
The translator explains: “
There is a lot of evidence, drawn from other songs of gesture, that a poem about the siege suffered by William of Orange in his newly conquered city must have existed in the past.
The discovery of the fragment we have now filled an important gap in the poetic biography of the epic hero.
This is a very interesting addition to the body of medieval French epic poetry.
"
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A manuscript can sometimes hide two others
The scholar made another remarkable find in the same book: a parchment fragment from the
Romance of Tristan
de Béroul, telling part of the story of
Tristan and Iseult
. The excerpt, which dates from the 12th century, is one of the earliest versions of medieval romance. Until now, the only proof of its existence has been an incomplete 13th century manuscript in the Bibliotheque Nationale de France.
According to Tamara Atkin, this fragment is proof that the poem was distributed more widely than previously thought. “
When you find manuscript residue in a 16th century book, it tends to be in Latin and it is almost always theological or philosophical subject matter. From the point of view of modern literary scholarship, it may not be so interesting. But the fragments of this book were different. They were in French, in verse, and in one of the fragments, Iseult's name immediately jumped out. I am not a specialist in French and I understood that I was going to have to call on colleagues. From there it was all a lot of fun and exciting,
”she told the British newspaper.
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Following her discovery, she therefore called in academics from the universities of Bristol, Edinburgh and British Columbia.
“
I knew it was something important.
This piece of the poem comes from a significant moment when Iseult speaks with her husband King Mark.
This fragment expands our knowledge of the poem's audiences and the evolution of its meaning over time and brings a new perspective on how the legends of Tristan moved across Europe,
”says JR Mattison, a specialist in French manuscripts from the University of British Columbia, which allowed the identification of the fragment of
Tristan and Iseult
.
It remains to be understood how texts so important to us end up hidden in more recent manuscripts?
The explanation is simple: parchment and paper being expensive at the time, unwanted manuscripts and books were frequently recycled.
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“
The fact that manuscripts have been produced testifies to the value once accorded to the texts they contain. But the manuscripts that were dismembered and reused as waste no longer had any value as texts. Their only value was that of a material good - the parchment - which could be used to strengthen the binding of another book. The manuscripts containing these French poems were probably recycled because the texts were considered old-fashioned and the language outdated,
”explains Tamara Atkin.
"
It's fantastically exciting to find something that has been lost all this time, but I also think you have to think that the only reason these fragments have survived is that at some point, someone thought that the manuscripts they were in had no value other than rubbish.
There is a kind of nice tension there, I think,
”she concludes.
