Peter of Poitiers

Vellum roll (ca. 126 x 10 1/2–11 in.; 320 x 27–28 cm), composed of six membranes joined head-to-toe, written in a fine formal gothic book-hand, rubrics in red, 1- and 2-line initials alternately in red with blue flourishing or vice versa, names of biblical and other personages within circles surrounded by colored squares, five diagrams of differing shapes, five circular miniatures of biblical figures, and a unique large rectangular miniature in two tiers, the green pigments have in places eaten through the vellum and been repaired, the top and bottom edges somewhat ragged, some wear overall, mounted on two modern turned wood rollers; conserved in 2010.

Inscribed with a few sixteenth-century annotations, attesting to the roll’s continued usefulness as a guide to biblical and other history — Sold anonymously in our London rooms, 14 November 1902, lot 276, bought for £15 15s. by — Sir Sydney Carlyle Cockerell (1867–1962), bibliophile, Secretary to William Morris, and Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; sold by him with eight other manuscripts in January 1957 to — Bernard Quaritch. acquisition:
Bernard Quaritch, 1959

W.H. Bond and C.U. Faye, Supplement to the Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States and Canada, New York, 1962, p.406, no.11. 

Books and Manuscripts from the Collection of Mr. & Mrs. Robert S. Pirie, exhibition catalogue, The Grolier Club, New York, 1963, no.45 and frontispiece. 

C. de Hamel, “Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts from the Library of Sir Sydney Cockerell (1867–1962),” British Library Journal, 1987, no.118.

W.H. Monroe, 13th and Early 14th Century Illustrated Genealogical Manuscripts in Roll and Codex: Peter of Poitiers’ Compendium, Universal Histories and Chronicles of the Kings of England, Ph.D. thesis, Courtauld Institute of Art, 1990, pp.172, 508–09.

S. Panayotova, “Peter of Poitiers's Compendium in Genealogia Christi: The Early English Copies,” in Richard Gameson and Henrietta Leyser, eds., Belief and Culture in the Middle Ages: Studies presented to Henry Mayr-Harting, Oxford, 2001), n.8.

Pen and Parchment: Drawing in the Middle Ages, exhibition catalogue, edited by M. Holcombe, The Metropolitan Museum, New York, 2009, pp.113–17 no.31.

Vellum roll (ca. 126 x 10 1/2–11 in.; 320 x 27–28 cm), composed of 6 membranes joined head-to-toe, written in a fine formal gothic book-hand, rubrics in red, 1- and 2-line initials alternately in red with blue flourishing or vice versa, names of biblical and other personages within circles surrounded by colored squares, five diagrams of differing shapes, five circular miniatures of biblical figures, and a unique large rectangular miniature in two tiers, the green pigments have in places eaten through the vellum and been repaired, the top and bottom edges somewhat ragged, some wear overall, mounted on two modern turned wood rollers; conserved in 2010.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
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The only example in private hands of an English thirteenth-century roll of a very popular medieval illustrated text, itself arguably the earliest example of what is now known as a “timeline.”

Text
The original text was composed by Peter of Poitiers (c.1130–1205), Chancellor of the University of Paris; he explains in his prologue that, because of the difficulties students may have in assimilating this information from other sources, his purpose is to provide a brief summary of the ancestors of Christ. He considered that even biblical summaries such as Peter Comestor’s Historia Scholastica and Peter of Riga’s Aurora were unnecessarily long. 

The text in all copies is arranged with a main central line of descent running from top to bottom, from Adam to Christ, spanning the Six Ages of the World as expounded by St. Augustine. The start of each Age is represented by a biblical figure: Adam for the beginning of human history, Noah for the post-Flood period, and so on, ending with Christ for the years Anno Domini. To either side of this central line are diagrammatically arranged contemporary historical figures and events. The text of the present roll begins with Lamech, descendant of Cain, and Tubal, Cain’s son by his first wife; it ends with the St. Anne (mother of the Virgin Mary), and her sister, Hismeria, with Anne’s three husbands, Hismeria’s daughter Elizabeth, and Elizabeth’s husband, Zachariah. There is therefore a single membrane missing at the beginning, and probably one more at the end. 

Although many copies were later produced in codex format, it is clear that Peter originally conceived of his work as a roll, both to reflect the continuous progress of history, and to avoid the potential confusion which can be caused when trying to follow three or more columns of text from the bottom of one codex leaf to the top of another. 

The first modern study of the text, P.S. Moore, The Works of Peter of Poitiers, Master in Theology and Chancellor of Paris, 1193–1205, 1936, established that it can be divided into two main families: the original version, and the so-called Interpolated version. Monroe’s recent dissertation cautions that the two versions might have been composed more or less simultaneously, or the Interpolated version could even be the older of the two. Panayotova, by contrast, shows that the Interpolated version seems to have developed gradually, first as a series of marginal additions and glosses, then as integral additions at the beginning and end of the original text, and finally with further passages integrated throughout the text. She suggests that the present roll is among the earliest surviving examples of the Interpolated version. 

Illustration
The illustration of the roll is of three kinds. The original version of the text apparently included five diagrams, all present here:

1. (sheet 1) A cross-section diagram of Noah’s Ark according to the description of Moses.

2. (sheet 1) A cross-section diagram of Noah’s Ark according to the description of Josephus.

3. (sheet 2) An arcade enframing a list of the forty-two stopping-places of the Israelites in the wilderness.

4. (sheet 2) An aerial-view diagram showing how the twelve tribes of Israel were encamped around the Tabernacle during the Exodus, with the Levites in four families, according to the four points of the compass.

5. (sheet 5) An aerial view diagram of Jerusalem and its six gates. 

The Interpolated version of the text additionally marks the start of each of the Six Ages of the World with an image of a biblical figures or scene; the present manuscript has five of these, lacking only Adam, who would have been on the now-missing first membrane:

1. (sheet 1) Noah, seated, wearing a cowled cloak and holding a tau-topped staff.

2. (sheet 1) Abraham, seated cross-legged, playing a dulcimer (a psaltery whose strings are struck rather than plucked or bowed).

3. (sheet 3) King David enthroned, harping.

4. (sheet 4) King Zedechiah enthroned, holding a sceptre.

5. (sheet 6) The Madonna and Child enthroned, the Virgin offering her breast.

The present manuscript also includes (sheet 4) a miniature in two registers representing, respectively:

1. Three standing kings, two holding a sceptre, one a sword.

2. Two standing priests, dressed as thirteenth-century archbishops: each with mitre, pallium, gloves, and crozier.

This iconography is unique to the present manuscript. 

Sydney Cockerell was doubtless the source of the observation reported in Bond & Faye (see References) that the style of drawing is very similar to that of a copy of Thomas of Kent, Roman de toute chevalerie (Cambridge, Trinity College, MS. O.9.34, on which see N.J. Morgan, Early Gothic Manuscripts I, London, 1982, no.81). Morgan concurs with this stylistic comparison, and further offers for comparison a Chanson d’Aspremont (London, British Library, Lansdowne MS 782, on which see ibid., no.82, and the BL’s online Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts), but dismisses the traditional tendency to attribute these and other mid-thirteenth-century English colored drawings to the “School of St Albans” and the circle of Matthew Paris. Morgan dates both manuscripts to c.1240–50, but leaves the question of their place of origin an open question. Monroe proposes and even closer comparison with the Trinity Apocalypse (Cambridge, Trinity College, MS R.16.2, on which see ibid., no.110). 

There are ten recorded English illustrated rolls older than 1300, of which the present example is the only one in private hands; the last ones to appear on the market were sold in our London rooms: 10 July 1972, lot 20, and 5 July 1976, lot 56.

Exhibited:

Privately to the Roxburghe Club in 2002 and publicly at The Metropolitan Museum in 2009, fully reproduced in the catalogue (see References).