{"id":702540,"date":"2026-05-29T23:04:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T23:04:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/702540\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T23:04:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T23:04:15","slug":"king-arthur-manuscript-in-private-hands-for-700-years-to-go-on-public-sale-national","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/702540\/","title":{"rendered":"King Arthur manuscript in private hands for 700 years to go on public sale – National"},"content":{"rendered":"

A medieval manuscript<\/a> containing an early version of the epic tale of King Arthur<\/a>, Merlin and the Knights of the Round Table, which has been privately owned for about 700 years, will go on public auction this summer.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Touted to sell for upwards of USD $2.7 million (CAD $3.7\u00a0 million), the document, which will be available for institutions to purchase this summer, is believed to be from the 13th or 14th century and contains several distinguishing qualities, including 126 small illustrations, one of which depicts Merlin as a stag, according to The Guardian<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Created sometime between 1210 and 1310, the soon-to-be auctioned mythic account of King Arthur and the search for the Holy Grail, penned in Old French from the Lancelot-Grail cycle, is written on vellum \u2014 a high-quality parchment \u2014 and adorned with gold leaf, according to Christie\u2019s<\/a>, the central London, U.K., auction house overseeing the sale.<\/p>\n

Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tThe manuscript is wrapped in 17th-century green velvet.\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\thristie’s Images Ltd. 2026\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Only three manuscripts of this kind are known to exist in private hands, Dr. Eugenio Donadoni, director of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts at Christie\u2019s, told Global News.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Get<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tGet daily National news<\/p>\n

Get daily Canada news delivered to your inbox so you’ll never miss the day’s top stories.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has been a privilege to have been able to work on a manuscript of this rarity and calibre: the stories are universal, and it has so much still to offer in terms of research and enjoyment,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs Merlin himself prophesies in the text itself: \u2018And the story will forever be told and gladly heard for as long as the world lasts,\u2019\u201d Donadoni added.<\/p>\n

He described the manuscript as \u201cbeautifully and richly illustrated\u201d and as \u201cthe earliest\u201d of the three in private collections.<\/p>\n

The \u201cvirtually unknown\u201d manuscript has never been publicly exhibited or studied in great detail, CNN reported, but boasts an illustrious list of previous owners, including a 15th-century knight, a jouster, an \u201cobsessive medievalist\u201d and a 20th-century industrialist named Jean Lebaudy, who was awarded two \u201ccroix de guerre\u201d for his \u201cheroic deeds in both World Wars,\u201d Donadoni told the U.S. news outlet.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMore on Trending
\n\t\t\tMore videos\n\t\t<\/p>\n

Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tThe manuscript dates centuries and is thought to be one of the earliest documents to contain the legend of King Arthur.\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tChristie’s\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Christie\u2019s expects the upcoming auction to attract many potential bidders.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are so many appealing angles to this manuscript: historical, art-historical, textual and cultural. There\u2019s the Christian element \u2014 the Quest for the Holy Grail; the chivalric element: the adventures, the quests, the jousts, the battles,\u201d Donadoni told Global News, adding its allure will likely extend to private buyers \u201cfor the same reasons that it appealed to the long line of owners who have treasured it over the course of the past 700 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

The document will be auctioned on July 8 in London, England.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A medieval manuscript containing an early version of the epic tale of King Arthur, Merlin and the Knights…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":702541,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[49,48,75,255651,519,3275],"class_list":["post-702540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-king-arthur","tag-trending","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=702540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/702541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=702540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=702540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=702540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}