Physical characteristics : an image of Flemish count
Philip of Alsace (fol. 282r). The Comburg Manuscript is not a beautiful, finely crafted
illuminated manuscript with lavish
miniatures, as is often imagined. The parchment is of poor quality, uneven and pigmented, with holes in it, and it is poorly bound. It contains only one graphically elaborate initial and a single drawing of the Flemish count
Philip of Alsace on folio 282, at the beginning of the
Rhymed Chronicle of Flanders. The miniature depicts a new legend, namely that Philip exchanged the old azure-gules coat of arms of the for the rampant black lion (later known as the
"Flemish lion"), which he is said to have brought back from the
Holy Land with his crusaders. The
Rhymed Chronicle of Flanders and the chronicle of John Iperius ( 1390) are the earliest accounts to claim this for the first time, two hundred years after Philip's death. Perhaps the Comburg Manuscript was a kind of
library catalogue, written in the storytelling tradition of the time, which could be consulted by anyone who wanted to order a story, which would then be carefully and skilfully copied. Although the codex does not contain any prices for the copying services and orders, the number of verses allows us to assume that professional
copyists were at work here.
Rhymed Chronicle of Flanders Modern researchers assume that no fewer than nine different hands worked on the text. The
Rhymed Chronicle of Flanders alone, which covers approximately the last 20% of the pages, was written by four different hands. The
Rhymed Chronicle consists of 10,571 verses (10,569 according to older counts) and is compiled from at least five sources: • From 792 to 1164, it is a translation of the Old French
Li générations, li parole et li lignie de le lignie des contes de Flandres, which in turn is a translation of the Latin
Flandria Generosa B. Due to some
lacunae, it is suspected that the first scribe did not compose this rhyming text himself, but copied it from someone else. • From 1164 to 1329, it is a translation of the Latin
Continuatio Claromariscensis (both the edition up to 1214 and the edition up to 1329), a continuation of
Flandria Generosa A. Halfway through Philip of Alsace's reign, the first scribe stopped writing and the second scribe took over until Philip's death (1191), after which the third scribe continued the translation. • From 1329 to 1347, the third hand used the Middle French
Chronique Normande abrégée (or its derivative continuation, the
Chroniques abrégées of
Baldwin of Avesnes, which are almost identical). The author already knew that the
Truce of Calais (entered into force on 28 September 1347) lasted three years, ("wart bestant III jaer"), but did not write about the intervening period of 1347–1350. • From 1348 to 1404 (the last year mentioned), a fourth text hand wrote, and it is likely to be an original Middle Dutch work by a new author and not just a creative translator/rhymester/copyist. The exact date of composition of this piece is unclear, but based on the information provided, particularly about the children of
Philip the Bold, it must have been written during the reign of
John the Fearless (). == Provenance ==