Medieval tale of Merlin and King Arthur found hiding as a book cover

 

Conservator Sally Kilby and Błażej Mikuła photograph inside the folds of a medieval manuscript that was used as the cover for another book later on. 

Former Cambridge archivist Sian Collins first spotted the manuscript fragment in 2019 while recataloging estate records from Huntingfield Manor, owned by the Vanneck family of Heveningham, in Suffolk, England. Serving as the cover for an archival property record, the pages previously had been recorded as a 14th century story of Sir Gawain.

But Collins, now the head of special collections and archives at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David, noticed that the text was written in Old French, the language used by aristocracy and England’s royal court after the Norman Conquest in 1066. She also saw names like Gawain and Excalibur within the text.

Collins and the other researchers were able to decipher text describing the fight and ultimate victory of Gawain, his brothers and his father King Loth versus the Saxon Kings Dodalis, Moydas, Oriancés, and Brandalus. The other page shared a scene from King Arthur’s court in which Merlin appears disguised as a dashing harpist, according to a translation provided by the researchers.

Tracing the book’s journey

The pages had been torn, folded and sewn, making it impossible to decipher the text or determine when it was written. A team of Cambridge experts came together to conduct a detailed set of analyses.

After analyzing the pages, the researchers believe the manuscript, bearing telltale decorative initials in red and blue, was written between 1275 and 1315 in northern France, then later imported to England.

They think it was a short version of the “Suite Vulgate du Merlin.” Because each copy was individually written by hand by medieval scribes, a process that could take months, there are distinguishing typos, such as “Dorilas” instead of “Dodalis” for one of the Saxon kings’ names.

“Each medieval copy of a text is unique: it presents lots of variations because the written language was much more fluid and less codified than nowadays,” Fabry-Tehranchi said. “Grammatical and spelling rules were established much later.”

But it was common to discard and repurpose old medieval manuscripts by the end of the 16th century as printing became popular and the true value of the pages became their sturdy parchment that could be used for covers, Fabry-Tehranchi said.

“It had probably become harder to decipher and understand Old French, and more up to date English versions of the Arthurian romances, such as (Sir Thomas) Malory’s ‘Morte D’Arthur’ were now available for readers in England,” Fabry-Tehranchi said.

The updated Arthurian texts were edited to be more modern and easier to read, said Dr. Laura Campbell, associate professor in the School of Modern Languages and Cultures at Durham University in Durham, England, and president of the British branch of The International Arthurian Society. Campbell was not involved in the project, but has previously worked on the discovery of another manuscript known as the Bristol Merlin.

“This suggests that the style and language of these 13th-century French stories were hitting a point where they badly needed an update to appeal to new generations of readers, and this purpose was being fulfilled by in print as opposed to in manuscript form,” Campbell said. “This is something that I think is really important about the Arthurian legend — it has such appeal and longevity because it’s a timeless story that’s open to being constantly updated and adapted to suit the tastes of its readers.”   via CNN