BENARD, Jean (author), Maître des Chroniques anglaises de Charles IX (illuminator, fl.1560s) - photo 1
BENARD, Jean (author), Maître des Chroniques anglaises de Charles IX (illuminator, fl.1560s) - photo 2
BENARD, Jean (author), Maître des Chroniques anglaises de Charles IX (illuminator, fl.1560s) - photo 3
BENARD, Jean (author), Maître des Chroniques anglaises de Charles IX (illuminator, fl.1560s) - photo 4

BENARD, Jean (author), Maître des Chroniques anglaises de Charles IX (illuminator, fl.1560s)

Lot 39
13.07.2022 10:30UTC +00:00
Classic
Starting price
£ 40 000
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 794468
Lot 39 | BENARD, Jean (author), Maître des Chroniques anglaises de Charles IX (illuminator, fl.1560s)
Estimate value
£ 40 000 – 60 000
BENARD, Jean (author), Maître des Chroniques anglaises de Charles IX (illuminator, fl.1560s)

Grandes annales et croniques d'Angleterre, in French, illuminated manuscript on paper [Paris], 21 April 1567.

An unrecorded illuminated and dated presentation copy to Jacques Bourdin, Minister for Finance under Charles IX, of Jean Bénard’s mammoth history of Kings and Queens of England and Scotland, which apparently survives in only 2 other examples, and represents an essentially witness to the French perception of Tudor England.



390 x 247mm. i + 541 + i leaves, contemporary pagination 1-1016 followed here (p.661 repeated, pp.789 and 880 skipped), catchwords survive, 26 lines of text, written space: 291 x 173mm, 242 large historiated or illuminated initials introducing the histories of the Kings and Queens of England, each history ending with elaborate borders of fruits and flowers, smaller illuminated initials throughout, rubrics, proper names and years in red, more significant names in red and blue, paragraphs often interspersed with pictures of fruits or flowers (lacking 6 leaves – pp.15-16 with the history of King Leil; pp.37-38 with Mulmutius; pp.49-50 with Gorbonian and Archigal; pp.53-54 with Vigenius and Gorbonian; pp.688-691 with the final pages of Henry VII – repairs to gutters and margins, especially at the beginning, edges a little frayed, marginal thumbing and light dampstaining, occasional foxing). 17th-century brown calf over wooden boards, 19th-century red morocco title label (rebacked, edges scuffed).



Provenance:

(1) Jean Bénard, secrétaire de la chambre du Roi, historiographer and interpreter: inscription at the bottom of f.1 ‘Achevé d'estre escrit et mis au net le XXIme jour d’Avril 1567’. Presentation copy to:

(2) Jacques Bourdin, seigneur de Villeines (d. 6 July 1567), French Minister for Finance.

(3) Erased 18th-century monastic ownership inscriptions on ff.1 and 3. The erased (but legible) inscription on f.3 reads: ‘pour la Bibliotheque Des R.R. p.p. Minimes de Boulogne, 1708’. There is a mention of a 1670 facsimile of apparently this very manuscript in a 1765 sale catalogue Catalogue D'Une Nombreuse Collection De Livres, En Tout Genre, Rares Et Curieux […], lot 433, p.173, which describes this copy and states that its transcription began on ‘le Mercredi 23 jour de septembre 1670, m’ayant été prêté par Ami, de Calais, la Mote Laubri’.



Content: BENARD, Jean, Sommaire des grandes annales et croniques d'Angleterre, beginning: ‘Sommaire des grandes annales et croniques d'Angleterre depuis le regne de Brutus qui fut en l'an du monde deux mil huit cens cinquante cinq, selon la progression des temps et annees, jusques a l'an de Nostre Seigneur Jesus Christ mil cinq cens soixante et six. Ensemble les choses plus celebres et memorables qui soient advenues es mesmes temps, aux royaumes d'Irelande, d'Escoce, Gales, Dennemarc et autres regions septentrionales’ f.1; Epistre dedicatoire, beginning: ‘A mon tres-cher et treshonnoré Seigneur […]’ ff.2-3; Chroniques d'Angleterre, from Brutus to Elizabeth I, beginning: ‘L’on veoid communement la plus-part des hommes prendre plaisir et delectation ordinaire à cognoistre une infinité de choses […]’ and ending: ‘[...] selon le gré et attente d'icelle princesse et de son seigneur et espoux’ pp.1-947; blank pp.948-9; Index of English monarchs: ‘Table de tous les roys d'Angleterre denommez en la presente chronique et qui ont regné jusques à ceste année que l'on compte 1567’ pp.950-956; Index of Scottish monarchs: ‘Table de tous les roys d'Escoce nommez en la presente chronique et qui depuis l'an du monde 3652 ont regné concurrement avec les roys d'Angleterre, jusques à Marie Stuart a present regnante’ pp.956-961; ‘Annotations contenans l'exposition de certains motz et dictions tant angloises que autres qui se peuvent trouver de difficile entente en la presente chronique, extraites de plusieurs livres tant anciens que modernes’ pp.962-1016; Table of subjects, from ‘Abbaye’ to ‘York’, ff.496-541v.



This imposing and richly decorated manuscript is part of a very small group of presentation manuscripts composed by Jean Bénard, ‘interprète et historiographe général des langues septentrionales et estrangères’ and illuminated by the Maître des Chroniques anglaises de Charles IX for members of the royal court in the years 1566-72. Apparently only two other manuscripts of the Grandes Annales survive, of which one is the presentation copy to the King, Charles IX (Paris, BnF, Mss. Français 5575) and another belonged to the Harcourt family and was sold in London in 1791, Bibliotheca parisiana […], 26 March 1791, lot 570.



This great history of the kings and queens of England is a testament to the renewed interest in all things English perceptible amongst the French elite in the middle of the 16th century: the new religion, the eventuality of a royal marriage, and the desire to learn more about the customs, language and history of their strange neighbours drove historiographers such as Jean Bénard to focus their attention across the Channel. Benard was a prolific facilitator of this renewed Anglo-French exchange: he composed a Recueil des principaux seigneurs qui passèrent la mer avec Guillaume le Conquérant (of which the presentation copy for Charles IX is London, British Library, Egerton 2388, dated 1569; Catherine de Medici’s copy dated January 1572, is Paris, BnF, Mss.Français 19000; and a third dated January 1568 and once belonging to Nicolas Moreau, seigneur d'Auteuil is Harvard University, Houghton Library, MS Typ. 549); and in 1566 wrote a Dictz et ordonnances politiques de Elizabeth, royne d'Angleterre (BnF, Mss., Français 6070). His Discours des plus mémorables faicts des roys & gra[n]ds seigneurs d’Angleterre depuis cinq cens ans was published by Gervais Mallot in 1579 and is a synthesis of the present text. Descriptions of Tudor England by French visitors are scarce, and the lengthy sections on Tudor kings and explanations on English customs (e.g. what the office of a Sheriff entails, pp.983-89, or what the Starr Chamber is, pp.1015-1016), are an essential contemporary witness to the French perception of England in the second half of the 16th century. Gervais Mallot, Jean Benard’s publisher, remarked on the knowing the history, laws and customs of neighbouring countries: ‘combien il est necessaire de cognoistre ce que font noz voisins: & au contraire, quelle messeance c’est d’ignorer leurs gestes, loix & coustumes’.





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