Assemblages and History in a Medieval French Manuscript from Corbie, ca. 1295: Copenhagen, Kongelige Biblioteket, GKS 487 f°
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Henry Ravenhall
Abstract
This chapter examines a late thirteenth-century French multi-text manuscript, Copenhagen, Kongelige Biblioteket, GKS 487 f°, notable for transmitting the sole surviving copy of Robert de Clari’s La Conquête de Constantinople (ca. 1216). GKS 487 contains four other historical or didactic texts (Récits d’un ménestrel de Reims, Jean de Flixecourt’s translation of Dares’ De excidio Troiae, Pseudo-Turpin Chronicle, Descepline de Clergie). Drawing on the concept of the “assemblage” as formulated by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, this chapter argues that multi-text manuscripts like GKS 487 act politically in the world by configuring territories and shaping identities. In particular, GKS 487 is read as staking a claim to the lands of the eastern Mediterranean by writing history about-and thus “translating”-these lands in the documents of northern France. The view of history that emerges in this chapter is one where the multi-text manuscript is a powerful materialization of a given community’s sense of its past-but only as it relates to its future. GKS 487 points insistently to its presumed place of production and usage, an abbey, Saint-Pierre de Corbie, which housed many of the relics Robert de Clari plundered from Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade. The concluding argument is that the GKS 487-Abbey-relic assemblage claims institutional longevity based on its role to remediate the past.
Abstract
This chapter examines a late thirteenth-century French multi-text manuscript, Copenhagen, Kongelige Biblioteket, GKS 487 f°, notable for transmitting the sole surviving copy of Robert de Clari’s La Conquête de Constantinople (ca. 1216). GKS 487 contains four other historical or didactic texts (Récits d’un ménestrel de Reims, Jean de Flixecourt’s translation of Dares’ De excidio Troiae, Pseudo-Turpin Chronicle, Descepline de Clergie). Drawing on the concept of the “assemblage” as formulated by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, this chapter argues that multi-text manuscripts like GKS 487 act politically in the world by configuring territories and shaping identities. In particular, GKS 487 is read as staking a claim to the lands of the eastern Mediterranean by writing history about-and thus “translating”-these lands in the documents of northern France. The view of history that emerges in this chapter is one where the multi-text manuscript is a powerful materialization of a given community’s sense of its past-but only as it relates to its future. GKS 487 points insistently to its presumed place of production and usage, an abbey, Saint-Pierre de Corbie, which housed many of the relics Robert de Clari plundered from Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade. The concluding argument is that the GKS 487-Abbey-relic assemblage claims institutional longevity based on its role to remediate the past.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Acknowledgements V
- Contents VII
- Abbreviations IX
- List of Figures XI
- Notes on Contributors XVII
- Introduction: History, Manuscripts, Making 1
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I Strategies of Production
- Assemblages and History in a Medieval French Manuscript from Corbie, ca. 1295: Copenhagen, Kongelige Biblioteket, GKS 487 f° 23
- Writing with the Book: History through the Codex and the Materiality of Autography 47
- Miscellanies of Histories: Perception of the Past and Historiographical Agency of Late Medieval Compilers 71
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II The Stakes of Adaptation
- Writing History with Bede’s Martyrology, 800–1200 95
- Adaptation and Affect in Orderic Vitalis’s Historia ecclesiastica 117
- From Little Egypt to Zurich: Chronicling Romani Immigrants with Late Medieval Manuscripts 141
- Making History in the Renaissance with Medieval Manuscripts: Jean Le Féron and the Grandes chroniques de France 171
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III Configuring History
- Medieval Monastic Manuscripts after the Middle Ages: The Case of St. Nikolaus in undis at Strasbourg 199
- History Branches Out: Narrative and Chronology in Cologny, Fondation Martin Bodmer, Cod. Bodmer 147 225
- Fabulous History: Painting History in Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, MS 5069 253
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IV Response
- Making History with Manuscripts: Response 287
- General Index 303
- Manuscripts Cited 315
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Acknowledgements V
- Contents VII
- Abbreviations IX
- List of Figures XI
- Notes on Contributors XVII
- Introduction: History, Manuscripts, Making 1
-
I Strategies of Production
- Assemblages and History in a Medieval French Manuscript from Corbie, ca. 1295: Copenhagen, Kongelige Biblioteket, GKS 487 f° 23
- Writing with the Book: History through the Codex and the Materiality of Autography 47
- Miscellanies of Histories: Perception of the Past and Historiographical Agency of Late Medieval Compilers 71
-
II The Stakes of Adaptation
- Writing History with Bede’s Martyrology, 800–1200 95
- Adaptation and Affect in Orderic Vitalis’s Historia ecclesiastica 117
- From Little Egypt to Zurich: Chronicling Romani Immigrants with Late Medieval Manuscripts 141
- Making History in the Renaissance with Medieval Manuscripts: Jean Le Féron and the Grandes chroniques de France 171
-
III Configuring History
- Medieval Monastic Manuscripts after the Middle Ages: The Case of St. Nikolaus in undis at Strasbourg 199
- History Branches Out: Narrative and Chronology in Cologny, Fondation Martin Bodmer, Cod. Bodmer 147 225
- Fabulous History: Painting History in Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, MS 5069 253
-
IV Response
- Making History with Manuscripts: Response 287
- General Index 303
- Manuscripts Cited 315
