Collation: ii + I⁸, II⁹ (3 is a singleton glued to a stub, 8 a singleton glued to 2), III-XII⁸, XIII⁶, XIV-XVI⁸ + i.
Text block: 244 x 187 mm.
With the inscription "Roument de la rose ou toute l'art d'amoure est enclosé" on leaf [1].
Double columns, ruled in plummet and drypoint.
Written in brown [?] ink by several hand in regular bâtarde.
Rubricated captions mark text divisions and speakers; alternating red and blue two-line initials with extensive flourishing.
Includes some catchwords and signatures, with some pricking visible.
Text of the poem on leaves [2]-[128].
The first gathering, with lines 1-953 wanting.
Miniatures on leaves [16], [18], [55], and [72].
Two miniatures wanting and replaced by blank pieces of vellum on leaves [92] and [114].
Misbound in the 16th century, with the proper order of the leaves restored during a 19th-century repair.
First leaf of original vellum bifolium flyleaves at front and backed (included in foliation) pasted to modern bifolia, with leaves of each forming the pastedowns.
Sixteenth-century brown calf binding sewn on four raised bands, stamped in blind with fleurs-de-lis within a diagonal grid, enclosed in a rectangular frame with a border of roses, glued to the 19th-century binding on boards. Rebacked spine with gilt lettering.
With the armorial bookplate of Elie Bochart, conseiller au Parlement de Paris. The shelfmark 687 on leaf 16 recto may be Bochart's.
One of the most influential vernacular poems written in medieval France.
The first 4058 lines were written by Guillaume de Lorris about the year 1230; Jean de Meun composed an additional 17,724 lines about 1275.
Purchase; King Alfred's Notebook; 2017; MS.17.034.
The manuscript appears in the Druout sale held by Emmanuel de Vregille and Christian Bizoüard of 1994, and was acquired by the owners of the Château de Menneval in Normandy.
