The multiple narratives of Matthew Paris' Estoire de seint Aedward le rei: Cambridge, University Library MS Ee. iii. 59

The multiple narratives of Matthew Paris' Estoire de seint Aedward le rei: Cambridge, University Library M S Ee. iii. 59 Cambridge, University Library MS Ee. iii. 59 is acknowledged to be one of the most beautifully illustrated manuscripts of the thirteenth century. M. R. James, who in 1920 produced a facsimile edition for the Roxburghe Club, describes the artistically lavish codex as follows: It measures 28 cm. by 19-20 cm. and consists of 34 leaves. There are usually three columns of text on the page, with 24 lines to a column, and a picture occupying the upper portion. In a good many cases the picture is of the breadth of two columns only: the third column of text then contains normally 48 lines, but sometimes fewer. Each page has, usually at the head of the middle column, a description of the picture written in red.1 The illustrated and rubricated text contained in this codex is the Estoire de seint Aedward le rei. Both the vernacular poem and the physical manuscript which contains it have been the objects of a long-standing critical debate centring on the authorship of the poem, the provenance of the manuscript, and the execution of the scribal and artistic components of the codex.2 One group of critics finds philological evidence for attributing the authorship of the poem—although not the scribal or pictorial work of the Cambridge manuscript itself—to Matthew Paris, the monk of St Albans who is well known for his interest in the production of books of saints' lives in both Latin and the vernacular.3 A n opposing camp assigns both the authorship of the poem and the production of the codex to the region around 1 M. R. James (ed.), La Estoire de Seint Aedward le Rei, Oxford, 1920, p. 10. 2 For a history of the debate see Richard Vaughan, Matthew Paris, Cambridge, 1958, pp. 169-74, and Kathryn Young Wallace (ed.), La Estoire de Seint Aedward le Rei, Anglo-Norman Text Society 41, London, 1983, pp. xvii-xxi. 3 This view wasfirstadvanced by M. R. James in his facsimile edition of the Estoire. James' thesis has received its strongest support from Richard Vaughan (Matthew Paris, pp. 174-76), and has also been promoted by, for example, M. D. Legge (Anglo-Norman in the Cloisters, Edinburgh, 1950, p. 22, and Anglo-Norman Literature and its Background, Oxford, 1963, pp. 268-69) and Kathryn Young Wallace (La Estoire de Seint Aedward le Rei, pp. xvii-xxi). PARERGON ns 13.2, January 1996—Text, Scribe, Artefact 7g V. B. Jordan Westminster which claimed Edward as its patron saint.4 The two groups do agree on one point: comparison of the hand and miniatures with those in other manuscripts known to be executed and illustrated by Matthew himself reveals that he could not have filled the roles of scribe and illustrator in this case.5 If a resolution can be said to emerge from this debate, it is that the work may have been compiled originally in the 1240s by Matthew but was later copied around 1250 at Westminster. Resolution of the problem is not the intent of this paper. However, Matthew's o w n attestation ought to be given the weight it is due. O n the fly-leaf of Dublin, Trinity College M S E. i. 40, which contains the vernacular Vies of Sts Alban and Amphibalus, is found a notice thought to have been written by Matthew himself regarding his literary activity: he reminds a certain G. to retrieve from Isabel, the countess of Arundel, the 'book about St Thomas the Martyr and St Edward which I translated and portrayed'.6 I will, therefore, follow the former camp in referring to Matthew Paris as the author of the Estoire, that is, the poem of 4686 verses, in octosyllabic rhymed couplets. Each page of the manuscript is arranged in a tripartite form. An illustration occupies the upper half of the page and the lower half is filled with poetic text. The verses themselves form two separate groups which share the lower part of the manuscript page. Directly beneath the illustration resides at least one set of explanatory...