Mission littéraire en Angleterre: Paul Meyer and the Quest for Medieval French Manuscripts at the Ashburnham-Barrois Sale (1901)

In this article, I explore the medieval manuscripts pursued for the Bibliothèque nationale at the Ashburnham-Barrois sale at Sotheby's auction house, London, in 1901, and the influential role of Paul Meyer, romance philologist and Director of the École des chartes, alongside the librarians Léopold Delisle and Henri Omont. Meyer knew the contents of the Barrois collection better than most, having visited the library at Ashburnham Place on multiple occasions since 1865. His early trips to England form my starting point for analysing the manuscripts prioritised at the sale. The London dealer Bernard Quaritch acted on behalf of the French national library in the auction room and their commission book reveals all the items pursued as well as the maximum bids allotted. By considering the choice of lots and values attributed to them, along with the scholarly assessments of the texts and manuscripts, the potential motivations behind their pursuit emerge. Finally, I turn to the Barrois manuscripts acquired after the sale and the perceptions of those lost. Through this analysis, I demonstrate how Meyer not only influenced scholarship on French-language manuscripts, but also the contents of the Bibliothèque nationale. This case study thus foregrounds the symbiotic relationships between scholarship on medieval French literary heritage and the history of manuscript ownership, by engaging with the trade in and values attributed to medieval manuscripts in the early twentieth century.