Notes on the manuscripts of the Liber Floridus of Lambert of Saint-Omer. Includes extensive information on some of the manuscripts, including chapter and folio content lists; there is also a summanry of each chapter.

The author's original manuscript has come down to us. After having been kept for a long time by the monks of Saint Bavo in Ghent, it is now kept in the library of the University of Ghent. The manager of this depot ... was good enough to leave this very precious volume in my hands for a long time, and to give me the means of comparing it with the other copies of the same work... I have been able to compare the Ghent manuscript with the nine copies whose existence has been recognized so far, and which all derive more or less directly from the copy preserved at Ghent. ... I will describe each of these manuscripts, beginning with that of Ghent, of which I will demonstrate the character of an original copy and of which I will place the date beyond all dispute. This copy has undergone more than one alteration, and in its current state it has several major gaps, most of which can be filled with the help of copies made prior to the disappearance of the leaves, the loss of which we regret. ... These copies are nine in number: two at the National Library in Paris; one at the Musée Condé, in Chantilly; one at Douai; one at Leiden; two in The Hague; one in Wolfenbittel and one in a private library in Italy. All of them, with the exception of the two last, have passed before my eyes, and I have been able to study them at leisure, several times, comparing them sheet by sheet with the original copy. - [Author]

215 p., illustrations.

Language: French