Search

IE TCD MS 212, circa 1400, contains what is perhaps the great medieval English poem, William Langland’s ‘Piers Plowman’, an astonishingly rich and searching exploration of what it takes to live rightly in a society corrupt and corrupting. As befits a work of its quality, the poem survives in over fifty manuscripts; this, one of two in Trinity College Dublin’s collection, is especially significant for containing early biographical information about the poet himself.Parchment; two paper flyleaves + 1-89 + one older parchment leaf + two paper endleaves; now foliated 1-90. Two systems of foliation: the one in black ink misses folio 81 and the foliation was corrected in June 1964 in pencil, according to a note on one of the paper endleaves.Written in a practised, even, upright anglicana formata hand with rounded feet. Blackish ink. Some corrections to the text in the scribe’s hand and in one other early hand. No illumination. Rebound by John Exshaw in 1741/1742, but the present binding is modern.[Description provided by Professor John Scattergood].Please see the Manuscripts & Archives Research Library’s catalogue entry for the manuscript here:https://manuscripts.catalogue.tcd.ie/CalmView/Record.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&id=IE+TCD+MS+212&pos=1

Motyw doliny bez powrotu (val sans retour), występujący w Powieści o Aleksandrze Aleksandra z Paryża (ok. 1180 r.) i Powieści o Lancelocie napisanej prozą (ok. 1220) pozostaje w szczególnym związku z motywem przejścia i przemiany. Pozornie niemożliwa do rozwiązania sytuacja bohaterów uwięzionych w zaklętej lub przeklętej przestrzeni (victor victus) staje się testem przypisywanych im wartości: odwagi i wielkoduszności Aleksandra Macedońskiego oraz wierności Lancelota. Stanowi też interesujące studium istoty wielkości rycerza – plus ratio quam vis, plus amor quam vis – dające pierwszeństwo nie sile, lecz rozumowi i miłości. The theme of the valley of no return (val sans retour), which occurs in Romance of Alexandre by Alexander of Paris (ca. 1180) and in Prose Lancelot (ca. 1220) is closely connected with the theme of passage and transformation. The situation of the protagonists imprisoned in an accursed or cursed location (victor victus), seemingly impossible to resolve, turns into a test of the values they represent: courage and generosity of Alexander the Great and fidelity of Lancelot. It is also an interesting study of the essence of the knight’s greatness – plus ratio quam vis, plus amor quam vis – which puts reason and love before power.