Manuscrits et pratiques autographes chez les écrivains français de la fin du Moyen Âge: l’exemple de Christine de Pizan by Olivier Delsaux (review)

Olivier Delsaux’s stimulating study, drawn from his doctoral thesis, begins by problematizing the use of the term ‘autograph’ to describe medieval manuscripts, and sets out to consider how and why medieval authors might have been involved in the composition of ‘autograph’ copies of their works, especially when this did not necessarily involve transcribing the text itself. He proposes a neologism, manufacture autographe (p. 57), to describe manuscripts in which the author was involved in production, correction, or supervision. In his preliminary discussion he distinguishes three possible stages in the assemblage of a manuscript. Briefly summarized, these comprise manuscrits de composition (drafts and early workings), manuscrits d’édition (models on which future copies might be based), and manuscrits de publication (copies intended for the public or the patron). The boundaries that distinguish these three types are by no means fixed: a manuscrit de composition may come to be used as a manuscrit d’édition, just as a manuscrit de publication may be revised and used as a model for future copies, thus functioning as a manuscrit d’édition. The study then proceeds through three chapters, which focus on the factors that would determine the extent of the author’s involvement in the production at each stage of composition. Chapter 1 considers the preparatory stages of the composition of a text, including questions of oral composition. This chapter in particular calls on an impressive range of sources, and functions somewhat as an anthology of different writerly stances. Its examples are drawn from the later medieval period — usually the fourteenth century through to the period of early printing, although material from as early as antiquity also features on occasion. Despite the work’s subtitle, the first half is by no means a book about Christine de Pizan, but is, rather, centred on manuscript production and scribal practices; it considers a variety of medieval writers in some detail, notably Antoine de la Sale, Charles d’Orléans, Jean Froissart, and Jean Miélot. The second, considerably shorter, chapter shows that the copying of a manuscrit d’édition, being essentially reproductive, can be delegated to a transcriber and need not be undertaken by the author. This conclusion leads into the final, substantial chapter, in which attention is now firmly directed towards the philology of Christine’s manuscripts. Delsaux’s illuminating description of the preparation of manuscrits de publication extends to all textual aspects of the manuscript, including an in-depth analysis of textual corrections, encompassing rubrications, titles, and signatures; his fascinating and original insights into the processes that must have been operating in Christine’s scriptorium emphasize the rushed nature of the work taking place there. At several points, one could not help but wish that images had been included to illustrate the features being discussed; some of the more necessary illustrations may be found in the collaborative volume Album Christine de Pizan, co-authored by Gilbert Ouy, Christine Reno, and Inès Villela-Petit (Turnhout: Brepols, 2012), to which Delsaux himself was a contributor.