Acknowledgments

We wish to express our deep appreciation to B.S. Merrilees and T.R. Wooldridge, Professors of French at the University of Toronto, and to H.G. Schogt, Emeritus Professor of French at the University of Toronto, for their careful direction and enthusiastic encouragement during the preparation of this thesis.

We owe a special debt of gratitude to our colleague, Mr. William Edwards, for his unstinting generosity in sharing the results of his own research.

Our sincere thanks are due to the librarians and staff at the libraries of the University of Toronto for their help and advice. We are also grateful for the interest and assistance offered during our visits by the directors and staff of the Bibliothèque nationale de France (Réserve des imprimés and Département des manuscrits), Paris, the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, Paris, the Bibliothèque Mazarine, Paris, the Institut d'Histoire et Recherche des Textes, Paris, the Musée des Beaux Arts de Caen, the Bibliothèque municipale de la Ville de Rouen, the Bibliothèque municipale de la Ville de Troyes, the British Library, London, and the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford.

Our research was also greatly aided through our correspondence with the Bibliothèque municipale de la Ville de Beaune, the Bibliothèque de l'Université catholique de Lyon, the Bibliothèque municipale de la Ville de Metz, the Frères mineurs Capucins, Toulouse, the Bibliothèque de l'Université de Tours - Section Droit-Lettres, the Bibliothèque publique et universitaire de la Ville de Genève, the Zentralbibliothek, Solothurn, the Sächsische Landesbibliothek, Dresden, the Friedrich-Schiller Universität, Jena, the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich, the Biblioteca Centrale della Regione Siciliana, Palermo, the Society of Antiquaries of London, the University Library, University of Cambridge, the Newberry Library, Chicago, and the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin.

We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada which provided the funding for us to undertake and complete this project. We also thank the School of Graduate Studies and the Department of French Language and Literature of the University of Toronto, for encouragement and financial assistance.

This thesis is dedicated to the memory of Bruce Shaw.

J.S., Toronto, January 1997