Lot 47
  • 47

Eulogium Historiarum, Liber V, a History of England, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on vellum [England, c.1380]

Estimate
12,000 - 18,000 GBP
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Description

  • Vellum
63 leaves (plus two modern paper flyleaves at both ends), 290mm. by 190mm., wanting one single leaf after fol.10 and one quire after fol.15 (and thus wanting from medieval foliation), ends imperfectly, decorated catchwords, collation: i8, ii7 (iii wanting), iii-viii8, 37-8 lines in an anglicana textura hand, written space 215mm. by 130mm., capitals stroked in red, one-line initials in red or blue, 2- to 6-line initials in red or blue with contrasting pen-flourishing, some including human faces (fols.25v, 27v, 35v, 41rv, 44v, 50v, 56v and 59v), two 5- to 6-line initials in burnished gold with purple pen-flourishing (fols.1r, 10r), some initials with human faces picked out in penwork, decorated glosses in margins, including sketches of King Edmund, Thomas Becket and King John (fols.38v, 56v, 62r) and a dog’s head (fol.51r), many annotations in the margins by hands of fifteenth to sixteenth century, medieval foliation from 156 to 238 (skipping numbers 190-199, and 222 by mistake), some leaves stained and discoloured, especially at ends and last leaf defective, late eighteenth-century English quarter leather over marbled pasteboards, spine with gilt title ‘Antiq. Brit. Hist. Mss. / Cod. Sec. XIV. / Mus. Bapt. Bristol / Gifford’, joints worn, scratches and bumps to corners and edges

Provenance

provenance

(1) The manuscript was written in England in the late fourteenth century. The text appears to have been composed at Malmesbury Abbey, and it seems unlikely that the extant copies were produced far from that community.

(2) Henry Justice (c.1696-1763), lord of the manor of Rufforth in Yorkshire, legitimate book collector and sometime book thief, who was sentenced to transportation in 1736 for this crime, this later commuted to exile on the Continent: his sale, van Daalen, 31 October 1763, lot 1485 (lot number on fol.1r); the price £2, 10sh. at head of fol.1r presumably the amount he paid for the book.

(3) Dr. Andrew Gifford (1700-84), English Baptist minister, numismatist and Assistant Librarian at the British Museum: his armorial book-plate inside upper cover; bequeathed to Bristol Baptist College.

(4) Bristol Baptist College: their armorial book-plate inside upper cover (see Ker, MMBL., I, pp.188-9); offered in our rooms, 17 December 1991, lot 65.

Catalogue Note

text

The Eulogium Historiarum is a history of England from its origins to the thirteenth century, with the present manuscript comprising the part which deals with England (Book V:1-128, see Haydon II:202-385, III:1-119). It includes the story of King Lear, of the invasions by Julius Caesar, the Romans, the Vikings, the history and prophesies of Merlin, the life of King Arthur, the Anglo-Saxon kings and the Danish invasions, the history of the abbey of Malmesbury and the Norman Conquest, breaking off with the death of St. Edmund Rich in 1240. The author appears to have been a monk of Malmesbury Abbey. His text was completed in about 1366 and the present copy is not much later. The text was edited by F.S. Haydon in 1858, tracing only five manuscripts (all in public collections: Cambridge, Trinity College, MS.R.7.2; London, British Library, Cotton MSS.Galba E VII and Cleopatra D II; Lincoln’s Inn Library, Hale MS.83 and Dublin, Trinity College, MS.497). Haydon convincingly argued that the Trinity manuscript is the author’s rough working copy, and as that and the present witness are the only ones to date to the fourteenth century, it seems likely that this manuscript here is the only surviving fair copy prepared for presentation by the author to his own community or an important patron. It is the first to come to the market in over 300 years.