Bonizo of Sutri, Libellus de Sacramentis and Liber de vita Christiana, in Latin, decorated manuscript on vellum [Italy (perhaps Mantua), second quarter of the twelfth century]

provenance

1. Most probably copied in the monastery of San Benedetto di Polirone in Mantua (see below).

2. Thomas Gascoigne (1403-58), chancellor of Oxford University and bibliophile, who owned at least 70 manuscripts, marking their leaves (as on fol.22v of the present manuscript) with his distinctive "IHC maria" inscription. He paid for the chaining of the library of Exeter College, Oxford, contributed to the building of the library at Oriel, and gave books to a number of other colleges, St. Paul's Cathedral and the Augustinian canons at Osney. After his death his papers were deposited in the library of Syon Abbey.

3. Rev. H. Campbell: his nineteenth-century bookplate once in earlier binding.

4. Heythrop Pontifical Athenaeum (formerly Heythrop College), Oxford; their MS.Z 105 Bon; their sale in our rooms, 29 November 1990, lot 103.

5. Bergendal MS.99; bought by Joseph Pope in the Heythrop sale: Bergendal catalogue no.99; Stoneman, 'Guide', p.203; Pope 'The Library', p.160; I.S. Robinson, 'A Manuscript of the Liber de vita Christiana of Bonizo of Sutri', in Bulletin of Medieval Canon Law N.S.3, 1973, pp.135-39; W. Berschin, Bonizone di Sutri, 1992.

text

Bonizo of Sutri was bishop of Sutri in central Italy in the eleventh century, greatly respected by Pope Gregory VII. He was born around 1045, probably in Milan, and found favour in Rome as early as 1074. He acted as papal legate and participated on behalf of the pope in the power-struggle between Gregory VII and Emperor Henry IV. He was arrested by Henry in 1082 and given into the custody of the antipope Clement III, escaping a year later. His enemies had him blinded and maimed in 1090, and he most probably died a few years later.  

This is a manuscript of considerable textual importance. It is the codex from which I.S. Robinson identified the Liber de vita christiana as a work of Bonizo (pp.135-9; noting the crucial "Bonicii" at the head of fol.1r). The text is so rare that it was unknown to Migne, and to date no manuscript copy has been recorded in the vast In Principio database. As Robinson notes, the two texts (interpolated with five canons from the Decretum of Burchard of Worms) also occur in Mantua, Bibl. Communale 439, a product of the monastery of San Benedetto di Polirone in Mantua, and there is a marked affinity between that and the present manuscript, suggesting that this manuscript "is a copy of the Mantua codex, amplified slightly by a scribe ... less skillful in his insertion of additional extracts".