"This is the first critical edition of a previously unedited and otherwise little noticed treatise on heraldic lore and practice. The treatise occurs in full in four manuscripts found in the British Library [Harley MS 6149], Queen's College Library, Oxford [Manuscript 161], and the National Library of Scotland. A version of the French sources of this text is found in a manuscript belonging to the College of Heralds. This edition is based on British Library, Harley MS 6149 with variant readings taken from all the other, later, copies. ... The heraldic 'bestiary' is ... by far the largest section, covering 1816 lines... Although the bestiary section of the Deidis of Armorie does not bear any direct relationship to any other known heraldic treatise, it does not stand alone. ... When we consider the sources on which our author drew for his animal descriptions, two stand out. The first is by the thirteenth-century Italian encyclopedist Brunetto Latini, whose Li livre dou tresor... was used for some of the accounts of birds and fishes in particular. ... The other source the author must have drawn on is some edition of de Bado Aureo's fourteenth-century Tractatus de armis." - Houwen

Includes in Volume 1: descriptions of the known manuscripts; the relationship of the witnesses; a set of photographic plates of Harley MS 6149; the text of the Deidis of Armorie. Volume 2: commentary, glossary, list of proper names.

2 volumes, 285 p., color facsimiles, bibliography.

Language: English

ISBN: 1-897976-09-7; LCCN: 95145378; LC: PR8633.CR19; DDC: 929.620