GRAND COUTUMIER DE NORMANDIE, in French, decorated manuscript on vellum [northern France, late 14th century] An unrecorded, working copy of one of the greatest legal treatises of the Middle Ages: the Grand Coutumier de Normandie , a compilation of fundamental juridical texts based on royal legislation, Roman, canon and Frankish law. An extremely rare witness to the local customs, laws and privileges of Norman France. 121 x 85mm. i (paper) + 135 + i (paper) leaves, 20 lines, ruled space: 84 x 65mm, catchwords, pinpricks and occasional gathering signatures survive, initials in blue and red throughout, rubrics in red (lacking at least a gathering after f.87, missing the fifth and final distinction of the first part of the book and the first half of the second part, cropping of marginal annotations, some staining and thumbing). 18th-century calf tooled in gold (edges scuffed). Provenance : Likely produced in northern France in the final quarter of the 14th century – numerous marginal annotations in near-contemporary hands: one French and another an English legal hand likely belonging to: – William Tapton: his inscription on f. 132v ‘Wyll(ia)m tapton / wyll'm tapt / du(m) sumus in mondo / wyvamus corde jocondo / Ihs t Ego sum bonus / Ego sum bonus puer / ego sum ylle / da qui non wollt? / ffllegere? da mychy / bacullu(m) [...]’; marginal annotations in English in the same hand throughout. Perhaps the same William Tapton who in 1484 is recorded as being granted an annuity for life of 5l. out of the lordship of Maunsfeld – 16th-century inscription referring to James VI and I on f.95: ‘Jacobus dei gratia Angli' Scotie’ – T. H. Oliver: 19th-century inscription on f. i verso. Possibly the same T. H. Oliver of Québec who edited the Code municipal de la Province de Québec, Québec : J. O. Filteau, 1888. Content : The text is divided into two parts, with the first subdivided into 5 distinctions (for an edition of the Coutumier see W. L. de Gruchy, L'ancienne coutume de Normandie , 1881). The first part deals with ‘li droit et les autres choses qui en droit sont neccesses’; the second with ‘li usages, les establissemens et les lois’. Table of Contents ff.1-8; Part One, Distinctions I-IV, ending with ‘De vouchement de garant’ (lacking distinction V, with, according to the Table of Contents, 17 chapters) ff.8-87v; Part Two, beginning in the middle of ‘De bref defieu et de gage’ (lacking, according to the Table of Contents, c.57 chapters from the beginning of Part Two) and ending ‘[...]empres la semonce faite’ (the end of the text tallies with the end of de Gruchy’s edition, but the Table of Contents of the present manuscript lists a further 27 chapters) ff.88-131. Only 12 manuscript copies of the Grand Coutumier de Normandie are recorded in public institutions, and they are extremely rare on the market. The present manuscript, though attractively decorated and neatly written was, on the basis of the numerous annotations in an English legal hand, also evidently a functional, working copy. There are a number of textual variations compared to the other surviving copies, and the Table of Contents contains many more chapters (201) than, for example, Harvard’s HLS MS 91 (which has 120).
GRAND COUTUMIER DE NORMANDIE, in French, decorated manuscript on vellum [northern France, late 14th century] An unrecorded, working copy of one of the greatest legal treatises of the Middle Ages: the Grand Coutumier de Normandie , a compilation of fundamental juridical texts based on royal legislation, Roman, canon and Frankish law. An extremely rare witness to the local customs, laws and privileges of Norman France. 121 x 85mm. i (paper) + 135 + i (paper) leaves, 20 lines, ruled space: 84 x 65mm, catchwords, pinpricks and occasional gathering signatures survive, initials in blue and red throughout, rubrics in red (lacking at least a gathering after f.87, missing the fifth and final distinction of the first part of the book and the first half of the second part, cropping of marginal annotations, some staining and thumbing). 18th-century calf tooled in gold (edges scuffed). Provenance : Likely produced in northern France in the final quarter of the 14th century – numerous marginal annotations in near-contemporary hands: one French and another an English legal hand likely belonging to: – William Tapton: his inscription on f. 132v ‘Wyll(ia)m tapton / wyll'm tapt / du(m) sumus in mondo / wyvamus corde jocondo / Ihs t Ego sum bonus / Ego sum bonus puer / ego sum ylle / da qui non wollt? / ffllegere? da mychy / bacullu(m) [...]’; marginal annotations in English in the same hand throughout. Perhaps the same William Tapton who in 1484 is recorded as being granted an annuity for life of 5l. out of the lordship of Maunsfeld – 16th-century inscription referring to James VI and I on f.95: ‘Jacobus dei gratia Angli' Scotie’ – T. H. Oliver: 19th-century inscription on f. i verso. Possibly the same T. H. Oliver of Québec who edited the Code municipal de la Province de Québec, Québec : J. O. Filteau, 1888. Content : The text is divided into two parts, with the first subdivided into 5 distinctions (for an edition of the Coutumier see W. L. de Gruchy, L'ancienne coutume de Normandie , 1881). The first part deals with ‘li droit et les autres choses qui en droit sont neccesses’; the second with ‘li usages, les establissemens et les lois’. Table of Contents ff.1-8; Part One, Distinctions I-IV, ending with ‘De vouchement de garant’ (lacking distinction V, with, according to the Table of Contents, 17 chapters) ff.8-87v; Part Two, beginning in the middle of ‘De bref defieu et de gage’ (lacking, according to the Table of Contents, c.57 chapters from the beginning of Part Two) and ending ‘[...]empres la semonce faite’ (the end of the text tallies with the end of de Gruchy’s edition, but the Table of Contents of the present manuscript lists a further 27 chapters) ff.88-131. Only 12 manuscript copies of the Grand Coutumier de Normandie are recorded in public institutions, and they are extremely rare on the market. The present manuscript, though attractively decorated and neatly written was, on the basis of the numerous annotations in an English legal hand, also evidently a functional, working copy. There are a number of textual variations compared to the other surviving copies, and the Table of Contents contains many more chapters (201) than, for example, Harvard’s HLS MS 91 (which has 120).
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