Pierre de Liffol and the Manuscripts of Froissart's Chronicles

"Pierre de Liffol and the Manuscripts of Froissart's Chronicles." Pierre de Liffol was a Parisian libraire or book contractor previously known for the sale of a French language Valerius Maximus to Jean Sans Peur in 1410. An effaced flyleaf quittance, visible under ultraviolet light, now shows Liffol as the libraire producing ca. 1411 1418 an illuminated manuscript of book I of Jean Froissart's Chronicles (Bibliothèque nationale de France fro 2663). Its frontispiece indicates a probable descent from a manuscript which Froissart had commissioned to present to Richard II of England but which, instead, was confiscated by Louis d' Anjou in Paris in 1381. Two other manuscripts of book I of the Chronicles with this same frontispiece and with close textual affiliation, Besançon Bibliothèque municipale 864 and Stonyhurst College 1, were presumably produced by Liffol as well. At least five more contemporary Froissart manuscripts, with the same frontispiece and made by some of the same illuminators and scribes who worked on Liffol's manuscript, may eventually be attributable to Liffol's efforts.