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Description: | At the order of Edward I, John de Breton, Bishop of Hereford (1268-1275), compiled tracts of English law in French. One of the greatest medieval English lawyers, John de Breton produced the work about 1275, just before his death. His legal compilation was part of the programmes of the king, one of whose most important accomplishments was his legal reform. John de Breton's book is written in French, the language of the Plantagenet king and the nobility. This manuscript copy of it is decorated in a general, contemporary style, the animals and scenes adding an entertaining and slightly luxurious note to its borders rather than having any relation to the text. In it an inscription states that it belonged to the small Cistercian Abbey of the Blessed Virgin Mary, at Merevale, near Atherston.
Later readers added notes in the margins of the manuscript as they studied it. In the lower margin, the hunting and riding theme that appears throughout the manuscript's decoration manifests itself in many ingenious variations. Here a rabbit or hare rides a dog while holding aloft something which resembles a horse's leg. | License: | http://www.bl.uk/services/copy/permission.html | Rights holder: | British Library | Source: | Collect Britain | Identifier: | http://www.collectbritain.co.uk/personal... | Language: | en-GB | Go to resource |
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