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Moritz Draschner

@moritzdraschner.bsky.social

169 followers 43 following 12 posts

PhD student researching Floire et Blancheflor in Middle English, Middle Dutch and Anglo-Norman at HHU Düsseldorf 🤓📜📚

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Moritz Draschner @moritzdraschner.bsky.social · 11/12/2024

Bonus bonus round: the initials in LTK 191 aligned next to each other reminded me of a flipbook, and the last page of the "Roman van Ferguut" (facing F&B) even has a space in which the illustrator (or maybe someone else?) practiced drawing them!

Many pages of LTK 191‘s "Roman van Ferguut" opened in a way that shows the left columns‘ illustrated initials as if the manuscript was a flipbook.

The last page of the "Roman van Ferguut“, in the empty space of which someone has either practiced or tried to copy the scribe‘s custom of illustrating their initials.

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Moritz Draschner @moritzdraschner.bsky.social · 11/12/2024

This version may not have 159 colourful miniatures but it does have cute little faces and animals in its initials – the same kind that graces almost every page of LTK 191‘s first text: the only Dutch version of the OF "Roman de Fergus". These initials reveal one scribe across two manuscripts!

A close-up of one page from LTK 1205: two columns of text, each of which has a big, illustrated initial. One of them is a bird of some kind, the other a snake or dragon.

A close-up of one page from LTK 1205: the right column of text has an initial D graced by a grumpy little face.

A close-up of one page from LTK 1205: the right column of text begins with an illustrated initial with a sad face inside it.

A close-up of one page from LTK 1205: the left column of text begins with a large illustrated initial: an S that is also a snake-shaped dragon.

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Moritz Draschner @moritzdraschner.bsky.social · 11/12/2024

LTK 2040 is tiny by comparison – an open spread is considerably smaller than a single page from LTK 191, and only four short segments survive. What jumps out besides this are multiple instances of censorship: an owner of this MS has erased mentions of love and tenderness between the main characters…

An un-bound double leaf from LTK 2040‘s "Floris ende Blancefloer" laying on a table with my Apple Pencil for scale: the spread is barely wider than the length of the stylus.

One page from LTK 2040 that has multiple half-erased lines of text.

Another page that has one more instance of censorship.

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Moritz Draschner @moritzdraschner.bsky.social · 11/12/2024

What follows is a third, 10-page segment with folios that are damaged to varying extents. They are narrower and shorter than those of the "main" segment and those of the following text, and the last page‘s verso side is completely empty, implying again that the MS was re-bound at least once.

The beginning of "Floris ende Blancefloer‘s" third segment: half the page has been cut away, leaving one imperfect column of text that itself has faded.

The verso side of the text‘s third segment: it‘s completely empty.

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Moritz Draschner @moritzdraschner.bsky.social · 11/12/2024

A very clearly legible main segment of the text follows after two folios that are smaller in dimension, partly dirty and partly faded. Between these two segments are traces of the compiler/binder‘s work: two pages that were cut and removed from the "better" segment.

A close-up shot of where the first two segments of "Floris ende Blancefloer" meet: two pages have been cut out and only leave narrow slices of parchment.

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Moritz Draschner @moritzdraschner.bsky.social · 11/12/2024

I got to visit @unileiden.bsky.social today and looked at the only two surviving Middle Dutch witnesses of "Floris ende Blancefloer" – in two 14th-c. manuscripts that differed greatly in look and feel!

LTK 191 above LTK 2040, the two only surviving manuscript witnesses of "Floris ende Blancefloer".

The two manuscripts are placed next to each other, demonstrating that 2040 is tiny in comparison to 191.

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