Medieval tale of Merlin and King Arthur found hidden in book

Researchers have found pages from a rare medieval manuscript disguised as a cover and sewn into the binding of another book , according to experts at the Cambridge University Library in England. The fragment tells stories about Merlin and King Arthur.

The two pages are from a 13th-century copy of the “ Suite Vulgate du Merlin .” The manuscript, handwritten by a medieval scribe in Old French, served as a continuation of the legend of King Arthur. There are just over three dozen surviving copies of the continuation today.

Part of a series known as the Lancelot-Grail cycle, the Arthurian romance was popular among aristocrats and royalty, said Dr. Irène Fabry-Tehranchi, a French specialist in collections and scholarly relations at Cambridge University Library. The stories were read aloud or performed by troubadours, or poets, who traveled from court to court, she said.

Rather than risk damaging the brittle pages by removing the stitches and unfolding them, a team of researchers were able to use imaging and CT scans to create a 3D model of the papers and virtually unfold them to read the story.

Fabry-Tehranchi, one of the first to recognize the manuscript's rarity, said finding it “is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”

The scans have revealed bookbinding techniques from the distant past and hidden details of the repurposed manuscript that could shed light on its origins.

“It’s not just about the text itself, but also the material artifact,” Fabry-Tehranchi said in a statement. “The way it was reused tells us about archival practices in 16th-century England. It’s a piece of history in its own right.”

Hidden in plain sight

Former Cambridge archivist Sian Collins first spotted the manuscript fragment in 2019 while cataloguing records from Huntingfield Manor, owned by the Vanneck family of Heveningham in Suffolk, England. Serving as the cover for an archival ownership record, the pages had previously been recorded as a 14th-century story of Sir Gawain.

But Collins, now head of special collections and archives at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David, noticed that the text was written in Old French, the language used by the aristocracy and royal court of England after the Norman Conquest in 1066. She also saw names such as Gawain and Excalibur within the text.

Some of the text, written in Old French, was faded or worn away by time, probably due to a leather strip • University of Cambridge

Collins and the other researchers were able to decipher the text describing the struggle and eventual victory of Gawain, his brothers and their father, King Loth, against the Saxon kings Dodalis, Moydas, Oriancés and Brandalus. The other page shared a scene from King Arthur's court in which Merlin appears disguised as a dashing harpist, according to a translation provided by the researchers:

“While they were rejoicing at the banquet, and Kay the seneschal (steward) was bringing the first course to King Arthur and Queen Guinevere, there came the most handsome man ever seen in Christian lands. He wore a silken robe girded with a silken harness woven with gold and precious stones, which shone so brightly that it lit up the whole room.”

Both scenes are part of the “Suite Vulgate du Merlin,” originally written in 1230, about 30 years after “Merlin,” which tells the origin stories of Merlin and King Arthur and ends with Arthur’s coronation.

“(The sequel) tells us about the beginning of Arthur’s reign: he faces a rebellion of British barons who question his legitimacy and has to fight against external invaders, the Saxons,” Fabry-Tehranchi said in an email. “Throughout, Arthur is supported by Merlin, who advises him strategically and helps him on the battlefield. Sometimes Merlin changes shape to impress and entertain his interlocutors.”

Tracing the book's journey

The pages were torn, folded and stitched together, making it impossible to decipher the text or determine when it was written. A team of Cambridge experts came together to conduct a detailed set of analyses.

After analyzing the pages, researchers believe the manuscript, with telltale decorative initials in red and blue, was written between 1275 and 1315 in northern France and later imported to England.

Blue and red flourishes in some of the letters allowed researchers to date the manuscript to the late 13th to early 14th century • University of Cambridge

They think it was a shortened version of the “Suite Vulgate du Merlin.” Because each copy was individually handwritten by medieval scribes, a process that could take months, there are distinctive typos, such as “Dorilas” instead of “Dodalis” for the name of one of the Saxon kings.

“Every medieval copy of a text is unique: it presents many variations because the written language was much more fluid and less codified than it is today,” Fabry-Tehranchi said. “Grammatical and orthographic rules were established much later.”

But it was common to discard and repurpose old medieval manuscripts in the late 16th century, as printing became popular and the true value of the pages came to be their sturdy parchment that could be used for covers, Fabry-Tehranchi said.

“It probably became more difficult to decipher and understand Old French, and more up-to-date English versions of the Arthurian romances, such as (Sir Thomas) Malory’s ‘Morte D’Arthur,’ were now available to readers in England,” Fabry-Tehranchi said.

The updated Arthurian texts have been edited to be more modern and easier to read, said Dr. Laura Campbell, an associate professor in the School of Modern Languages and Cultures at Durham University in Durham, England, and president of the British branch of the International Arthurian Society. Campbell was not involved in the project but had previously worked on the discovery of another manuscript known as the Bristol Merlin.

“This suggests that the style and language of these 13th-century French stories were reaching a point where they were in dire need of updating to appeal to new generations of readers, and that this purpose was being served by the printed version rather than the manuscript version,” Campbell said. “This is something I think is so important about the Arthurian legend — it has such appeal and longevity because it is a timeless story that is open to being constantly updated and adapted to suit the tastes of its readers.”

Discovering hidden clues

The researchers captured the documents in wavelengths of light, including ultraviolet and infrared, to improve the readability of the text and uncover hidden details, as well as notes in the margins. The team performed CT scans with an X-ray scanner to virtually peer through the layers of parchment and create a 3D model of the manuscript fragment, revealing how the pages were stitched together to form a cover.

CT scans showed there was likely a leather band around the book to hold it in place, which wore away some of the text. Twisted strips of parchment, called tackets, along with thread reinforced the binding.

“A range of specialist photographic equipment, such as a probe lens, and simple accessories such as mirrors, were used to photograph parts of the manuscript that would otherwise be inaccessible,” said Amélie Deblauwe, a photographer at the Cultural Heritage Imaging Lab at Cambridge University Library.

Dr Irène Fabry-Tehranchi holding the rare manuscript before inserting it into the micro-computed tomography scanner at the Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge • University of Cambridge

The research team digitally assembled hundreds of images to create a virtual copy of the pages.

“The creation of these digital outputs, including virtual unfolding, traditional photography and (multispectral imaging), contributes to the preservation of the manuscript in its reused form, while revealing as much of the original content as possible,” Deblauwe said.

The researchers believe the methodology developed for this project could be applied to other fragile manuscripts, especially those repurposed for other uses over time, to provide a type of nondestructive analysis. The team plans to share the methodology in an upcoming research paper.