Welsh Journals

MS. 7. Professor Morgan Watkin first drew attention to this frag- ment, dating from the thirteenth century, of a verse redaction of the romance of Berinus,' better known in its prose form. For further information about it see R. Bossuat's edition of Berinus published by the Societe des Anciens Textes Frangais, and a note by J. J. Jones in The National Library of Wales Journal, Vol. I, pp. 103-5. An important French manuscript in this group is Peniarth MS. 482 (Anc. Peniarth 30), an illuminated Passional of the late fifteenth century, La Passion de nostre saulueur Jhesucrist,' in thirty-six chapters, the first eight treating of the raising of Lazarus, the anoint- ing of Christ's feet, the entry into Jerusalem, the woman taken in adultery, and the Last Supper. The next thirteen chapters narrate the Betrayal, Passion, Crucifixion, and Entombment of Christ, while the remaining chapters contain the Lamentations of Mary, the Harrow- ing of Hell (taken from Leuuangille de Nichodemus '), the Resurrect- ion, the Ascension, the coming of the Holy Ghost, and the legendary lives of Judas and Pilate, with the avenging of Christ's death through the siege and destruction of Jerusalem by Vespasian and Titus (based apparently on the Legenda Aurea of Jacobus de Voragine, see Graesse's edition, 1846). The attribution, in the table of chapter headings, of the work to Jehan Jarsson seems quite unsupported by authoritative evidence and it is doubtful whether the work in its present form is an actual translation from any Latin text, though it may have been based largely on the Meditatio Vitae Christi attributed to St. Bona- ventura. The MS. appears to be almost identical with a work bearing the same title which was translate de Latin en francois for Isabelle of Bavaria, Queen-Consort of France in 1398, and which is extant in several manuscripts (e.g. Paris, Arsenal MSS. 2038 and 2386, Mazar- ine MS. 949). Beginning on folio 186 there is a poem, Le Miroir de Mort, by Georges Chastellain, a short account of which, by Armel H. Diverres, a former student in the French Department at the University College, Swansea, appears on pp. 218-9 of the present number of this Journal. The Peniarth MS., which is written on vellum, is bound in oak boards covered with crimson velvet, and has the book plate of Watkin Williams of Penbedw (died 1808). On f. iib is the inscription P A description of this manuscript is included because, although it was not acquired by Sir John Williams, it formed at one time part of the Peniarth collection. It was pre- sented to the National Library by the Misses Davies, Gregynog. — Editor^