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Details
BIBLE, a leaf from a Giant Romanesque Bible, in Latin, decorated manuscript on vellum [France, mid-12th century]
A huge leaf from a monastic Lectern Bible written in elegant script, with large-scale Romanesque decoration.
A single leaf, c.505×360mm, pricked in the inner margin and ruled in plummet for 2 columns of 41 lines written above top line in a fine, regular, formal Romanesque book-hand, ruled space 360×245mm, the text comprising the end of a prologue to Habakkuk (Stegmüller no. 531) and Habakkuk 1:1–2:17, no chapter division marked, except by a late-medieval hand, the words of the explicit and incipit in large display capitals alternately in red or blue, the main text beginning with a nine-line decorated initial ‘O’ in blue, c.85×65mm, infilled with foliate ornament in red, blue, and green, running headings in red (some light staining, small holes and minor rust-stains at each corner from having been pinned to a wall, a crease in each outer margin and through the text near the gutter edge, not affecting legibility, the verso darkened, stitching-holes and other typical damage from having been used as a book-cover, the verso with the dates 1591 and 1592, and 16th-century pen-trials in French). Bound in grey buckram at the Quaritch bindery.
Provenance:
(1) Probably written at and for a Cistercian monastery in France (see below).
(2) Apparently used as a book-cover in the late 16th century.
(3) Reported by Rosenthal to have been acquired from Sotheby’s in 1967, but not identified in their catalogues for that year, unless it was one of ‘a few loose unnumbered fragments’ in the ‘Fragmenta manuscripta’ album previously owned by Archbishop Tenison, Sir Thomas Phillipps, and Sir Sydney Cockerell and sold on 12 December, lot 51 (a volume now at the University of Missouri).
(4) Bernard Rosenthal, his ‘I/205’.
(5) Bernard Quaritch, cat. 1088 (1988), no 63.
(6) Schøyen Collection, MS 81.
Script:
One of the features that signals a transition from Romanesque to Gothic script, the fusing together (or ‘kissing’) of the letters ‘pp’, is present several times (‘ppha’ for propheta, ‘ppls’ for populus, oppressus, etc.); the ampersand is used regularly for ‘et’; round ‘s’ is used regularly at the ends of words, but tall ‘s’ elsewhere except for majuscule initials at the start of a verse; hyphens appear at the ends of lines; but ‘i’s are not dotted even when several minims are likely to lead to confusion (e.g. ‘admiramimi’)
The script of the present leaf includes a form of punctuation known as the ‘punctus flexus’, like a small ‘7’ above a comma, typical of Cistercian and Carthusian manuscripts (cf. lot 440). The growth and spread of the Cistercian order in the 12th century is one of the most striking phenomena of medieval society and religion; the order became so popular that new monasteries were founded at an almost exponential rate, such that by the end of the 13th century there were more than 500, spreading out from the mother house at Cîteaux to the furthest reaches of Europe. Each new monastery needed its own set of books. In addition to liturgical texts the Bible was of course primary: biblical passages were read aloud to the community, and thus lectern-sized volumes were needed, both for legibility and as a tangible symbol of each church’s stability and potency.
A huge leaf from a monastic Lectern Bible written in elegant script, with large-scale Romanesque decoration.
A single leaf, c.505×360mm, pricked in the inner margin and ruled in plummet for 2 columns of 41 lines written above top line in a fine, regular, formal Romanesque book-hand, ruled space 360×245mm, the text comprising the end of a prologue to Habakkuk (Stegmüller no. 531) and Habakkuk 1:1–2:17, no chapter division marked, except by a late-medieval hand, the words of the explicit and incipit in large display capitals alternately in red or blue, the main text beginning with a nine-line decorated initial ‘O’ in blue, c.85×65mm, infilled with foliate ornament in red, blue, and green, running headings in red (some light staining, small holes and minor rust-stains at each corner from having been pinned to a wall, a crease in each outer margin and through the text near the gutter edge, not affecting legibility, the verso darkened, stitching-holes and other typical damage from having been used as a book-cover, the verso with the dates 1591 and 1592, and 16th-century pen-trials in French). Bound in grey buckram at the Quaritch bindery.
Provenance:
(1) Probably written at and for a Cistercian monastery in France (see below).
(2) Apparently used as a book-cover in the late 16th century.
(3) Reported by Rosenthal to have been acquired from Sotheby’s in 1967, but not identified in their catalogues for that year, unless it was one of ‘a few loose unnumbered fragments’ in the ‘Fragmenta manuscripta’ album previously owned by Archbishop Tenison, Sir Thomas Phillipps, and Sir Sydney Cockerell and sold on 12 December, lot 51 (a volume now at the University of Missouri).
(4) Bernard Rosenthal, his ‘I/205’.
(5) Bernard Quaritch, cat. 1088 (1988), no 63.
(6) Schøyen Collection, MS 81.
Script:
One of the features that signals a transition from Romanesque to Gothic script, the fusing together (or ‘kissing’) of the letters ‘pp’, is present several times (‘ppha’ for propheta, ‘ppls’ for populus, oppressus, etc.); the ampersand is used regularly for ‘et’; round ‘s’ is used regularly at the ends of words, but tall ‘s’ elsewhere except for majuscule initials at the start of a verse; hyphens appear at the ends of lines; but ‘i’s are not dotted even when several minims are likely to lead to confusion (e.g. ‘admiramimi’)
The script of the present leaf includes a form of punctuation known as the ‘punctus flexus’, like a small ‘7’ above a comma, typical of Cistercian and Carthusian manuscripts (cf. lot 440). The growth and spread of the Cistercian order in the 12th century is one of the most striking phenomena of medieval society and religion; the order became so popular that new monasteries were founded at an almost exponential rate, such that by the end of the 13th century there were more than 500, spreading out from the mother house at Cîteaux to the furthest reaches of Europe. Each new monastery needed its own set of books. In addition to liturgical texts the Bible was of course primary: biblical passages were read aloud to the community, and thus lectern-sized volumes were needed, both for legibility and as a tangible symbol of each church’s stability and potency.
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