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De sa gloire, de sa bonte De ce vous avons nous conte Et rendu aucunes raisons Au plus briement que nous savons Car nont cure de longue gloses Les gens dore, mais de bries choses Comme cil qui sont de brief sens Car lor nature est de brief tans Bries sont lor cors, bries sont lor vies Car en peu de tans sont fenies Et tous jors plus brief devenront Dus quatant qua noient venront Car cis siecles empeu de tans Trespasse tout ausi com vens Et defenist, de jor, en jor Chascuns i fait petit sejor Cartant est plains de vanite Que riens ni a de verite Cil qui plus demorer icuide Est sovent cil quancois le vuide Et plus tost muert por ce fait bien Qui tant com il vit fait le bien Car il nest qui sache aquele eure Lamors li doie corre seure Tels se cuide molt bien esbatre .V. ans et bien sa coupe batre Quen mains de .v. jors est ales Et ou puis denfer avales Si est sages, et bien apris Qui ou service dieu est pris
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Tant com diex li preste le sens, Et il ena loisir et tans Car diex len rendra si haut don Que tous biens avra abandon Et la joie de paradis Que diex nos otroie atous dis Encui toute pities habonde Ci fenist lymage dou monde A dieu commence, a dieu prent fin A ses biens, et commence et defin En lan de lincarnation Aures a lapparition Mil .cc.lx.v. ans Fu parfais premiers cis romans Vous qui aves oi lescrit Dou fil damedieu ihesu crist Et puis dou mont, que diex forma Li siecles une autre forme a Que vous devez apres entendre Qui dou siecle voles aprendre Ici fenist la mappemonde
[at the bottom of the page, later hand:] Anno Dni* M.CC.LXV 1265 per Guillelmum Forment normannum.
[*an abbreviation for Domini but without abbreviation mark]
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[image: diagram showing the medieval cosmological model of celestial spheres, nested concentrically inside one another, surrounding the sublunary world, with hell at the center: the inner circle represents hell depicted as the head of a monstrous beast (gorgoneion), upside down, swallowing the damned in its jaws, as in many Anglo-Norman apocalypses (Jurgis Baltrušaitis, Le Moyen Âge fantastique: antiquités et exotismes dans l'art gothique, Paris 1955); the first four concentric rings, painted respectively in light brown, green, blue and red with labels in white, represent the four elements of the sublunary world, i.e. Earth (label: [C E S …]), Water (label: C E S T E […]), Air (label: . C E S T A [I R] S) and Fire (label: . C [E] S T [F] E U S); the next seven rings, painted in different shades of blue from light to dark, with labels in white, represent the planetary spheres, i.e. Moon (label: […]), Venus (label: . C E S T V [E N] U S), Mercury (label: . M E R C U R I U S), Sun (label: C E S T S O L A U S), Mars (label: . C E S T M A R S), Jupiter (label: + J U P I T E R), Saturn (label: S A [T] U R N U S); the 8th and 9th ring, both painted blue with labels in white, represent the sphere of fixed stars, i.e. Firmament or Zodiac (label: + C E S T L I [F] I R M A M E N S) and the Crystalline sky or Primum mobile (label: + L I C I U S C R I S T A L I N S); the outermost circle painted in purple, represents the Empyrean Heaven with the Angelic Hierarchies, i.e. Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones, Dominions, Virtues (missing) and Powers, Principalities, Archangels and Angels (labels in white, from the top clockwise: . LICIUS . IMPERIAUS . CERU[B]INS . POTESTATES . D[OMIN]AT[IO] . [A]NGELI . ARCHANGELI . HOMO . PRINCIPATUS . TRONUS . SERAPHIM . ***). On the top of the diagram, Christ in majesty (Maiestas Domini) inside a mandel-shaped aureola (vesica piscis or mandorla) in gold foil: Christ is seated on a throne, holding a book in his left hand and the right hand raised in blessing; the arms of the throne have the shape of animal heads, two on each side, to represent the tetramorph (Book of Ezekiel 1, 10; The Book of Revelation 4, 1-8). Note that the order of the spheres of Venus and Mercury is reversed with respect to the Ptolemaic scheme (see also diagram at f. 77v.) and that in the Angelic Choirs the Virtues are replaced by Man (Homo)].
