The absent first gathering of the Chantilly manuscript

Abstract

ABSTRACT The Chantilly manuscript, probably compiled in the 1410s, is thought to have lost an original first sestern early in its history, as the folio numbers start at 13. Because the table of contents matches the order of pieces in the manuscript and starts with the present first item and at fol. 13, it has been assumed that it post-dates the sestern's loss. But the folio numbers were added to that table not by its original hand, but by a later (Italian) one, and that same hand wrote the foliation for the manuscript; table and foliation were therefore almost certainly provided in the same operation. If the table of contents was post factum, why is its foliation in a hand different from the incipits? This article argues that the table of contents was in fact prescriptive, drawn up by a different (French) person before the contents were copied, and that the foliation was added both to the index and the body of the manuscript after copying, allowing for a new planned gathering to be added at the beginning, perhaps including the two Cordier rondeaux. This was never completed; what we have is what there was, and nothing was lost. This hypothesis raises further questions about the codicological and chronological relation of the Cordier songs to the index, to that planned gathering, and to the early history of the manuscript, questions to which provisional answers are suggested.