Lot 19
  • 19

The Gospel of Saint Luke, glossed, in Latin, manuscript on vellum

Estimate
60,000 - 80,000 GBP
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Description

152 leaves, plus original flyleaves at each end, 255 mm. by 170 mm., complete, collation: i-xix8, pencil foliation (in Eric Millar's hand, followed here) includes pastedowns and flyleaves, central column with 15 lines, ruled in plummet, written-space 177 mm. by 47 mm., written in dark brown ink in an angular rather prickly romanesque bookhand, marginal glosses on either side and between the lines in smaller script (a little more rounded, less tall, often a bit paler in colour) on lines ruled independently of the main page ruling, combined written-space of about 180 mm. by 150 mm., three small painted initials, in brown (fol. 9v), purple (fol. 11r) and green (fol. 75v), three large painted initials, in green with decorative flourishing in red and brown (fol. 3r), in brown with flourishing in red (fol. 4v) and in red with flourishing in green and red (fol. 5r), each accompanied by opening words of text in coloured capitals, many additional glosses and side notes in ink and plummet in a variety of hands of the twelfth and thirteenth century, a few stains (e.g., fol. 152r), some original flaws in the vellum, generally in extremely fine original condition, contemporary Canterbury binding of square-edge oak boards flush with the edges of the text block, sewn on two tawed leather thongs pegged into the boards (visible inside lower cover where the pastedown is lifted), covered with soft tawed leather, spine flat, half-moon tabs at top and bottom of spine lined with coloured damask and sewn round edges in yellow thread, contemporary full-length bookmark of plaited green silk attached to headbands (currently lying between fols. 92 and 93), a tawed leather clasp strap extending from a groove in the centre fore-edge of the upper cover (secured by a chamfered slip of wood pushed into the groove and attached by three wooden pegs) over to lower cover, end of strap with a metal finial (probably of brass) ornamented with an 8-leaf flower design, attachment for hinged strap extension (now lacking), stub of an iron pin in centre of lower cover (rusted, rust-marks affecting final endleaves), lacking any chemise cover once over the binding, binding a bit scuffed and slightly wormed but entirely intact and in remarkably fine condition, in a red quarter morocco fitted case, title gilt

Provenance

provenance

(1) Saint Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury, the oldest monastery in southern England, founded outside the walls of the city c. 598-605, suppressed in 1538.  The manuscript was doubtless made locally, for it is written in the distinctive local 'prickly' script of Canterbury (see below).  The purple paint (used in the initial on fol. 11, for example) is characteristic of Kentish manuscripts, and was believed by M. R. James to be unique to Canterbury.  On the flyleaf are the fourteenth-century inscriptions of Saint Augustine's: "Lib[er] S[an]c[t]i Aug[ustini] Cant[uariensis]", the title with identifying letter "Lucas. glo. cu[m] .A." and the abbey's pressmark "Di[stinctio]. III. G[radus] I" (the 'I' over an erasure, probably 'III', exactly as in the companion volume of Matthew glossed, now Canterbury Cathedral Lit. D. 6, and all in the same hands (R. Gameson, The Earliest Books of Canterbury Cathedral, 2008, p. 263 and plate on p. 259).  Both books were shelved together in the abbey library in the third distinctio – which is a piece of furniture, either a bookcase or a desk – and on the top shelf, to which they were moved up from shelf 3 in the course of the Middle Ages, perhaps as they became out-of-date.  The present manuscript is listed in the successively-upgraded medieval catalogue of Saint Augustine's as "Lucas glo cum A. 2o fo. In prohemio. Qui p[er] David.   D.3a. Ga. Io" (Barker-Benfield, p. 435).  The second leaf of the prologue does indeed begin "qi p[er] david" (fol. 4r).

Saint Augustine's Abbey was closed in 1540.  Almost immediately antiquaries and others began picking over the books in the library.  This process of dispersal took almost eighty years, as the vast collection was gradually weeded away to nothing.  One by one, then, those freed manuscripts came back again into public possession, into collections such as the British Library, the Bodleian, and Trinity College, Cambridge.  Even now, this process is not quite over.  Today, only a couple of fragments and two volumes from Saint Augustine's still remain in private hands: the present book and a manuscript at Longleat.   Not until those two pass into institutional libraries will this particular chapter of the English Reformation finally be complete.

(2) Signature on flyleaf of "H:h Price, 1800", presumably Hugh Price.   The manuscript was later owned by the bookseller W. H. Bohn who has written and initialled a brief description in pencil inside the upper cover

(3) Sale in our rooms, 17 March 1903, lot 383.

(4) George Dunn (1864-1912), with his initials in pencil on the flyleaf; bought in January 1905; his sale in our rooms, 5 February 1914, lot 1335.

(4) Sir Alfred Chester Beatty (1875-1968), W. MS. 27; his sale in these rooms, 3 December 1968, lot 8.

(5) Bought in 1968 by a private collector, and by descent to the present owner.

Literature

literature

M. R. James, The Ancient Libraries of Canterbury and Dover, Cambridge, 1903, p. 516.

E. G. Millar, The Library of A. Chester Beatty, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Western Manuscripts, I, Oxford and London, 1927, pp. 98, no. 27

N. R. Ker, Medieval Libraries of Great Britain, A List of Surviving Books, London, 1941, p. 29; 2 ed., 1964, p. 42; A. G. Watson, Supplement, 1987, p. 12.

B. Barker-Benfield, St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury, London, 2008 (Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues, 13), pp. 436 and 2043.

Condition

Condition is described in the main body of the cataloguing where appropriate
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Catalogue Note

script and text

Monks from Normandy were brought after 1066 to both the Benedictine monasteries in Canterbury, Saint Augustine's and Christ Church Cathedral Priory, and they introduced Norman texts and scripts into south-east England.  The new monks at Saint Augustine's were recruited especially from Mont St-Michel in southern Normandy, but those at Christ Church came mainly from Bec and probably Jumièges in the north.  Each house developed a slightly different style of script, based on their local practices in France.  The present volume, rather unexpectedly, is in the Christ Church script.  It was almost certainly made by the scribe of Trinity College, Cambridge, B.2.34, written at Christ Church, c. 1120, or by a hand so similar as to be more-or-less indistinguishable (cf. C. R. Dodwell, The Canterbury School of Illumination, 1066-1200, 1954, pls. 18a and 45g).  This is the characteristic 'prickly script' of Canterbury, associated originally with Anselm and Eadmer.  Notable features include the angular upturned tops of the ascenders of 'd', 'b', 'l', etc., and the similar upward flick of the feet of 'i', long 's', etc.; the 'n' or 'm' contraction, commonly an almost horizontal line, is sharply curved; and 'a' has a short top stroke, markedly downturned to the left.  These are typical of a tight group of Christ Church manuscripts around 1120-30, also including Trinity College R.15.22 and B.3.32 (Dodwell, pls. 206b and 11d; T. Webber, 'Script and Manuscript Production at Christ Church', Canterbury and the Norman Conquest, ed. R. Eales and R. Sharpe, 1995, p. 157; and Webber in The Cambridge Illuminations, 2005, pp. 78 and 88).

Christ Church was probably more attuned to the new scholastic learning than Saint Augustine's.  Lanfranc (c. 1005-1089) and Anselm (1033-1109) had both been members of the Cathedral Priory.  The Gloss on the Bible was the latest scholastic innovation, disseminated from the cathedral schools of Laon and Auxerre and (probably by 1137) from Paris.  It was composed by Anselm of Laon and his school, and it was still being developed and formed until the early 1120s; cf. C. de Hamel, Glossed Books of the Bible, 1982, esp. chapter 1.  The text is F. Stegmüller, Repertorium Biblicum Medii Aevi, IX, 1977, pp. 525-6, no. 11829.  The present manuscript shows the oldest and most primitive form of page layout.  It is the oldest known English manuscript of the Gloss on Luke's Gospel (at least, no other copy is listed in R. Gameson, The Manuscripts of Early Norman England, c.1066-1130, 1999).  It is part of a set of early glossed books of the Bible at Saint Augustine's Abbey marked as "cum A".  Later acquisitions of glossed books were distinguished from this primary set by the names of their donors.  "If this book were indeed made in Canterbury, it would demonstrate up-to-date links with the developments in biblical scholarship across the channel" (Barker-Benfield, p. 436).

The manuscript opens with the prologue on folio 1r, "Lucas sirus natione & antiocensis ..."; folio 4v, "Quoniam quidem multi conati ...", with the first glosses beginning "Conatur qui incipit ..." and "Multi: non tam numerositate ..."; folio 5r, "Fuit in diebus herodis ..."; ending on fol. 154v, "... & benedicentes dominum amen."

binding This is a superbly-preserved example of an English romanesque binding, unrestored and intact, of the type described by G. Pollard, 'The Construction of English Twelfth-Century Bindings', The Library, 5 ser., XVII, 1962, pp. 1-22, and C. Clarkson, 'English Monastic Bookbinding in the Twelfth Century', Ancient and Medieval Book Materials and Techniques, ed. M. Maniaci and P. Munafò, 1992 (Studi e Testi, 358), pp. 181-200.  It may owe its survival and condition to having once been protected by a chemise cover.  It is, as far as we know, the oldest English bookbinding in private hands.