The Tale of a Tragic Hero: The Longleat Roman de Tristan

Northern France, Caen or Bayeux (?), 1445

From the glorious library of Longleat House, seat of the Marquesses of Bath, comes an immensely important manuscript, made around 1445. It holds the French translation of the Tristan Romance in Prose, a narrative that continues to fascinate readers until today, and which features the foundational love story of European literature: the tale of Tristan and Iseult.

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Manuscript in French on vellum.

432 x 285 mm. 291 leaves (one of two original volumes).
One miniature across both columns, nine column-wide miniatures.

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A foundational piece of literature that has shaped the imagination of generations

Overview

Considered one of the most popular works of the Late Middle Ages, the prose romance of Tristan originated around 1215-1235, combining the story of the earlier verse narrative of Tristan and Iseult with adventures of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, particularly those of the Lancelot-Grail Cycle and, in this first part, of the Vallet à la Cotte Maltaillée, a verse romance that has only survived in fragmentary form. New verses were composed to be incorporated into the narrative as letters and songs. These are presented in the Longleat copy in shorter lines of text and special layout. The authorship, however, remains obscure.

The Roman de Tristan was read widely, and survives now in about 90 manuscripts of the various versions of the text. However, only four complete single volumes and six complete sets are listed among the surviving copies by H. Grange (2016). The Longleat volume is apparently unknown to scholars, and entirely unpublished. It covers the eventful histories of Tristan’s forebears, Tristan’s infancy and adventures in Ireland and Brittany, his escorting of Iseult to Cornwall to marry Tristan's uncle, King Mark, Tristan and Iseult's innocent drinking of the love potion that makes their passionate affair inescapable, Tristan’s unconsummated marriage to Iseult and his and Mark’s enmity and reconciliation in time to repel an invasion by the Saxons.

It is difficult to precisely identify the illuminator responsible for the decoration of our manuscript, but some stylistic characteristics suggest a connection to the northwest of France, in Normandy. During the second quarter of the 15th century, some cities in western Normandy, such as Bayeux and Coutances, produced a series of illuminated manuscripts that echoed Parisian models, albeit with a rudimentary execution filled with charm. Our Tristan manuscript could be a new witness to this interesting local production.

Both iconographically and textually, this overlooked copy offers significant new material for research into the prose Tristan and its fifteenth-century appeal.

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