ThePassages d'outremer is a chronicle of thecrusades written inMiddle French bySébastien Mamerot in 1473–1474. Drawing freely on legendary material, it covers the wars betweenCatholics andMuslims from the time ofCharlemagne until 1462.[1]
Mamerot was the chaplain ofLouis de Laval-Châtillon, governor ofGenoa, who commissioned thePassages.[2] It is divided into 88 chapters and covers 272folios inmanuscript. Its full title isPassages fais oultre mer par les François contre les Turcqs et autres Sarrazins et Mores oultre marins ('Passages made overseas by the Franks against the Turks and other overseas Saracens and Moors').[1]
ThePassages d'outremer is conserved in three 15th-century manuscripts, all today in theBibliothèque nationale de France (BnF), numbers fr. 5594, fr. 2626 and fr. 4769. A partial edition was printed at Paris byMichel Le Noir in 1518 under the titleLes passaiges d'Oultremer faitz par les Françoys.[1] The manuscript BnF fr. 5594 is a masterpiece ofmanuscript illumination byJean Colombe, containing 66 full-pageminiatures.[3][4] It was finished after 1488, since it contains a copy of a letter from theOttoman sultanBayezid II to KingCharles VIII of France dated to that year.[5]