Birth scroll

Contents

Vie de Sainte Marguerite: in verse [Beginning wanting].Written in a neat gothic script, on one side only.

Saint Margaret is said to have been martyred at Antioch in the last quarter of the third century, and later her cult was celebrated by the Orthodox Church under the name of Marina: her feast was on July 20. This cult, especially in its connection with childbirth, where the Saint is particularly invoked as Protectress and Patroness of women in travail, is found in the poem by Wace, and in contemporary and later vernacular versions. It seems to have flourished most vigorously in Normandy, Flanders, and England from the twelfth century onwards, and down to at least the end of the seventeenth century in France.

Bibliography

Skemer, Don C. Binding Words: Textual Amulets in the Middle Ages (University Park: Penn State University Press, 2006), pp. 246-247

c. 1465

1 volume Scroll. gothic char. 250 x 11 cm. On thin vellum. The beginning, containing probably about 50 lines, has been torn away, the first six lines are mutilated. There are tears and stains in the text.

Purchased 1929.

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Database description transcribed from S.A.J. Moorat, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts on Medicine and Science in the Wellcome Historical Medical Library (London: Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, 1962-1973).

In the entries below, the text of MS. 1555 in the Bibliothèque Nationale has been used, as transcribed by A. Joly in his 'La vie de Sainte Marguerite, poème inédit de Wace', Paris. 1879, pp. 99-129, with his numeration of lines. Begins (first complete line): Les eux uers et cleir la face (line 57). Ends: Lassur en paradis tout droit Dites amen que dieux lotroit. Amen (line 661) Explicit uita gloriose virginis Marguerite Deo gratias. Amen. The last two lines are not in MS. 1555, though otherwise our MS. is very similar. Both these MSS. are based on Wace's poem of the same title written perhaps about the middle of the twelfth century. Elizabeth A. Francis has published an edition of this, 'Wace. La vie de Saint Marguerite'. Paris. 1932, which has a valuable preface on Wace and his work. He was a poet and chronicler, and was a Prebendary of Bayeux in 1169 (see the Dictionary of National Biography]. The poem is written in octosyllabic couplets, and three MSS. are known: Paris, Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal 3516; Troyes, Bibliothèque

In the margin at the beginning is an inscription [c. 1873]: 'Ce rouleau a été tiré du chateau du Gibanel et appartient à Monsieur le baron de Lombarel du Gibanel qui l'a prêté à Mr. Le comte de Clairmont Toucheboeuf'.