Scriptoria

Manuscripts of Saint-Wandrille and Préaux (11th-12th centuries)

For the first time gathered in Le Havre, exceptional manuscripts leave their guardian institutions, the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the municipal libraries of Rouen, Tours, and Lisieux, for a unique exhibition. Among them is the jewel of the Le Havre collection: the Major Chronicle of Fontenelle, which contains the oldest monastic chronicle in Europe.

From the scriptorium of Saint-Wandrille, one of the most remarkable in Normandy, radiated a whole art of copying that the monks of Fontenelle carried with them when founding Saint-Pierre de Préaux: two abbeys of Lower Seine, sharing the same heritage of writing.

Little remains of Saint-Pierre de Préaux today. Its abbey church, chapter house, refectory, and cloister have all disappeared. It is not its stones that have survived a thousand years, but its parchment manuscripts, precious witnesses of a period of intense intellectual and artistic activity.

This activity is associated with a great circulation of knowledge and decorative motifs. Books travel, of course, but so do scribes, and decorations pass from one monastery to another, forging a Norman aesthetic. Knowledge even crosses the English Channel: the library of Saint-Wandrille housed a missal from Winchester. They resonate, both literally and figuratively: read aloud and sung as part of the liturgy, they filled the naves, a sonic dimension that the exhibition invites us to rediscover.

Cooperation France / United Kingdom

Partnership : Susan Rankin, professor of medieval music at the University of Cambridge, Bibliothèque nationale de France, the municipal libraries of Rouen, Tours, and Lisieux