Maugis d’Aigremont
France, second half of the thirteenth century

Renaut de Montauban
France, second half of the thirteenth century

Peterhouse MS 201, f. 57r
France, c. 1275–1300
Vellum, 270 x 216 mm (216 x 180 mm), 167 ff.

What place did vernacular texts occupy in Cambridge libraries? A marginal one, certainly, considering that academic education until the eighteenth century was entirely delivered in Latin and that Cambridge libraries reflected the curricula of the day. Our catalogues do, however, register a handful of French texts, particularly from colleges orientated towards the arts, and they are often the result of gifts made by the more curious and open-minded collectors of the time. A remarkable example is this copy of Maugis d’Aigremont and Renaut de Montauban, listed in the 1418 Peterhouse catalogue, which was also part of John Warkworth’s gift to the College. Before coming to Cambridge, Warkworth was the chaplain of William Grey, bishop of Ely, a humanist with strong ties to Italy and Aquitaine. His brother John probably possessed another of the few extant witnesses of Renaut de Montauban, the one that is today held by Oxford’s Bodleian Library, Laud. misc. 637 (Paris, 1333).

By kind permission of the Master and Fellows of Peterhouse, Cambridge.