X-Nico

3 unusual facts about Rawlinson Excidium Troie


Peter Le Neve

Among his library's holdings was a volume of fragments that found its way into the collection of Richard Rawlinson and thence to the Bodleian Library, Oxford, that contains the so-called "Rawlinson Excidium Troie", a unique testimony to a Latin account of the Trojan War that was used by many medieval writers.

Rawlinson Excidium Troie

The Rawlinson manuscript formed part of a volume of fragments collected by Peter Le Neve (1661–1729), herald and antiquary, which found their way into Rawlinson's library.

In some of the vernacular poems, traces of Latin declensions in proper names betrayed an unidentified Latin source.


Roman de Troie

Benoît's sources for the narrative were the Latin rescensions of Dictys and Dares and some material from the all-but-lost Latin recension that is represented now in part of a single, fragmentary manuscript, the Rawlinson Excidium Troie in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.


see also