ANONYMOUSAN `ANONYMOUS' TEXT OF THE ASSIZE APPEARS IN A LATE ®FTEEN...

An `anonymous' text of the Assize appears in a late ®fteenth-century manuscript of

the `TreÂs Ancienne Coutume de Bretagne'.

²²

This text is `anonymous' because the

®nal clauses of the Assize, in which the name of the addressee appears in all the

other versions, have been omitted. Comparing this text with the others, it most

closely resembles the Vitre text, although it cannot be positively identi®ed without

the ®nal clauses. Curiously, a French translation of the Dinan text appears at folios

159±60 of the same manuscript, but the `anonymous' Latin text is not of the Dinan

text. The `anonymous' text may represent an eighth text, addressed to an

unidenti®ed eighth baron. Certainly, there is no reason why the seven barons

known to have acquired a copy of the Assize should be the ®nal number.

The texts of VitreÂ, Dinan and Rohan are the most useful, but not because these

are somehow `closer' to the supposed original `of®cial' text of the Assize and

therefore a better, more accurate record of it. Rather, the extant copies of these

three are, for the reasons given above, closer to the original manuscripts of VitreÂ,

Dinan and Rohan and less likely to have suffered later scribal error. The other four

(or ®ve) versions, in contrast, are ®rst recorded in later medieval manuscripts, in

contexts in which the provenance of the text is indeterminate and there is ample

scope for scribal error. The variations between the three most reliable texts,

19

AN ms J240, nos. 30±31; A. Teulet (ed.),

Layettes du TreÂsor des Chartes,

i, Paris, 1863, p. 144, no.