Wow! Sometimes you just have to say Wow!

Imagine my surprise when poking through a fine secondhand bookstore in Toronto--on a trip to participate in a pas d'armes--when I found myself face to face with a work by the famed Rene d'Anjou that I had never before heard of.
My collection at home, in terms of tournament books, is largely complete, saving only a few hard to find sources from the 19th century. In all of those books, and in all of their bibliographies, I somehow missed the fact that there was another tournament book--this one in the Russian National Library in St. Petersburg.

King Rene d'Anjou was a prolific 15th century patron of the chivalric arts, sponsored many of his own pas d'armes, served as both soldier and diplomat, and preserved his 'ideal' tournament in the now famous Traicte de la Forme de Devis d'un Tournoi. Although well known to scholars for a very long time, that work has only recently (in 1996) been translated into English by Dr. Elizabeth Bennett, where it now serves as a maintstay reference for tournament re-enactors.

The work itself details what appears to be a record of a real pas d'armes either attended by or held by Rene himself. The illustrations are reminiscent of those that decorate his Traite, but unfortunately the German commentaries are difficult enough that we will have to have them translated separately to see what the commentators think of the book itself. For my own part it looks like Rene did the work himself, or had the same illustrator as did his book.

Fortunately, the reproduction is done to the very highest quality in two volumes. The first commentary volume contains a transcription of the French passages that seem to detail who crossed lances with whom, while the second contains very well done reproductions of every page--and the librarian's notes included in the front. Sumptious and wonderful; worth every cent.

We'll be working to reproduce these illuminations on the web, but it will take a bit of time to secure the permissions from the Russian National Library. Stay tuned for more--and in the meantime, I highly recommend this volume for those who can part with the $450 to obtain it.

Das Turnierbuch fur Rene D'Anjou (Pas de Saumur)
Folio Edition, 2 vols. (limited to 580 copies)
Commentaries by N. Elagina, J. Malinin, T. Voronova, D. Zypkin
Akademische Druck-u Verlagsanstalt
Gratz, Austria
ISBN 3-201-01674-8
~$450

Hard to find--but probably still in print.