In Praise of Fragments: A Manuscript of the Prose Tristan in Châlons-en-Champagne

The work today known as the prose Tristan, whose earliest version was composed c. 1220-1235, was one of the most widely disseminated literary texts in French of the later Middle Ages. Of the 80-plus medieval manuscripts that have come down to us, however, only ten volumes or sets of volumes can be considered “complete” insofar as they tell a more or less uninterrupted tale from prologue to epilogue. Most of the surviving manuscripts, though materially intact, provide only one or two sections of this vast text, or else a selection of choice episodes. And approximately one quarter of the manuscripts listed in the most up-to-date inventories of Tristan manuscripts are fragments. To use the words of A. C. Dionisotti, these fragments were “made rather than born” thus: they were physically detached from more complete volumes some time after their production, sometimes by accident or through wear and tear, but more often than not because later users prized the durability of parchment over the text written upon it when it came to binding their printed books or even lining their hats