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One of the main difficulties in the study of manuscripts prepared between the first quarter of the thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth century, designed to pass on evidence of vernacular literature of the time and of previous decades, is the lack of any certainty about how they were received. How can we understand why they were disseminated or interpret the often disconcerting way our oldest literary collections are organized without any evidence of their original purpose? That they were intended for the aristocracy, or at least linked to the highest strata of medieval society, is the most frequent and natural explanation for their production. Yet this does not explain their striking diversity and singularity. Clearly, we must abandon the "classic" hypothesis of manuscrits de jongleurs as extremely problematic. Based on two examples, well known to medievalists, collections BnF, fr. 837 and 1553, this paper attempts to clarify the question, examining their physical reality and content, and comparing them to other copies, especially those from collections of the nobility, and thus see what we can deduce about their owners' preferences.