HERALD. SOMME. ABBEVILLE WAIGNART (Pierre) Armorial... Lot 10

[HERALD]. [SOMME]. [ABBEVILLE] [WAIGNART (Pierre)] Armorial of the mayors of Abbeville In French and Latin, illuminated manuscript on paper France, Picardy (Abbeville?), very late 16th century or first quarter of the 17th century With 293 shields (some are mute) enhanced with colors (gouache and tempera) Small folio, 24 pages, preceded and followed by a guard leaf, text and shields on two columns, fine cursive writing in brown ink, extracted from a larger dismembered manuscript (text interrupted on fol. 24v; the fragmentary character of the present manuscript is suggested by the former owner in a note pinned on the upper counterfoil) Bound in full stiff vellum, smooth spine, cold and ink fillets (modern binding). Size of the leaves : 198 x 294 mm Dimensions of the binding : 205 x 300 mm. Provenance Ludovic Froissart, French collector, his bookplate partly torn off, his note on the manuscript : " Armorial des mayeurs d "Abbeville. Manuscript of Waignart which gives the mayors of Abbeville from Gautier Patin, mayor of Abbeville in 1183 to François Rumet mayor in 1589...". See : Advielle (V.), "Les manuscrits héraldiques de Pierre Waignart, d "Abbeville", in Revue historique, nobiliaire et biographique, troisième série, tome II, 1877, pp. 1-22. This manuscript contains the coats of arms and short biographies (more developed for the characters of the 16th century) of the 89 "mayors" of Abbeville from 1183 to 1589. The manuscript must date from the very end of the The manuscript must date from the very end of the 16th century (on fol. 24v, an inscription dated 1594 is quoted). Elected for one year, the mayor of the city of Abbeville enjoyed great power, including that of high and low justice. The mayor also had military duties and, in case of war, he had to go and fight with the common banner. Pierre Waignart (1571-1631), a bourgeois and lawyer from Abbeville, came from an old Picardy family and was also a heraldist. We have a History of Waignart (Abbeville, BM, MS 106-110): this general history also contains the coats of arms of the lords and aldermen of Abbeville (see MS 110), copied by the same characteristic hand, most certainly that of Pierre Waignart. The second work is known to Advielle and belonged to Dumoulin, bookseller in Paris (at least in 1877). It is the Armorial of Waignart with 8500 coats of arms.