Chronique anonyme universelle

Ms. roll.

Bibliographic record created by BPL staff based on description by Dr. Lisa Fagin Davis.

Origin: Produced in France ca. 1470s.

Previously cataloged under call no. G.Cab.3.31.

Currently shelved under call no. MS pb Med. 32.

For further information, see: Haraszti, Z. "Medieval Manuscripts in The Library" More Books III (1928), 71-72; Davis, L.F. La Chronique Anonyme Universelle: Reading and Writing History in Fifteenth-Century France (Harvey Miller Publishers, 2014); Davis, L.F. "Chronique Anonyme Universelle à la Mort de Charles VII" Encyclopedia of the Medieval Chronicle (Brill, 2010), pp. 296-297; Davis, L.F. "The First and Second Recensions of the Chronique Anonyme Universelle", Harvard Library Bulletin 20 (2009), pp. 1-33; Davis, L.F. "Scrolling Through History: La Chronique Universelle, Boston Public Library Ms. Pb. Med. 32" in Netzer, N. ed., Secular/Sacred 11th-16th Century Works from the Boston Public Library and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Boston College, 2006), pp. 43-50 and cat. 16; A.D. Hedeman -- E. Morrison, Imagining the Past in France (Los Angeles, 2010), 242-245 (cat. No. 44).

Consult curatorial file for further information.

Acquired by the Boston Public Library in March 1903 from Syndey Cockerell.

Provenance: Owned by Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Barrois (1784-1855). Presumably sold to the Earl of Ashburnham (1797-1878) with the rest of the Barrois collection in 1849, although the manuscript is not listed in the Barrois catalogue. His sale, Sotheby's London, 10 June 1901, lot 626 to Sidney Cockerell for the Boston Public Library (Barrois-Ashburnham lot number "626" written in blue pencil on verso of fifteenth sheet, before the silk repair was applied).

In French.

Ricci, S. de. Census of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts in the United States and Canada, vol I, pages 923-924

The Chronique Anonyme Universelle records the history of the world from Creation to the late middle ages, including a detailed genealogy of mankind. History is recorded in parallel columns, beginning with Biblical history in two, then adding ancient Greece at the right, and finally settling into a four-column format - from left to right, the Popes, Roman and Holy Roman emperors, the kings of France, and the kings of England (with a brief detour into the crusades near the end). This copy is incomplete; complete copies of the text conclude with the coronation of King Louis XI in 1461. It is the latest scroll in what Davis has identified as the R2a family (closely related to manuscripts 1493 H2 L R W and X). See Davis, La Chronique Anonyme Universelle.