Lot 47

Lectionary, in Latin, decorated manuscript on vellum [Germany (perhaps Mainz), first half of the twelfth century]

Estimate

20,000 - 30,000 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

Vellum

119 leaves, 233mm. by 170mm., complete, collation: i-xiv^{8, xv^{7 (wanting v), double column, 35 lines in black ink in an angular early gothic bookhand, rubrics in red, simple 3-line initials in red and green,}}large initial (8-line) on fol.1v, in green with red penwork and red rectangular shapes with penwork antennae within compartments of initial, slight scuffing to last leaf with slight losses from text, else in breathtakingly fresh condition, nineteenth-century faded pink velvet over early bevelled wooden boards, with nail holes and marks in fabric tracing outlines of five bosses or enamels, the central one perhaps a figure of Christ (all now absent)

Provenance

provenance

1. Written and decorated in Germany in the first half of the twelfth century. There are two supplementary readings added at the end, for the Division of the Apostles (a feast distinctive of the Rhineland) and for St. James the apostle. The manuscript might be from the great Ottonian abbey and scriptorium of St. Jakobsberg, Mainz, founded in 1051 and suppressed in 1802.

2. Bergendal MS.32; bought by Joseph Pope from John Fleming of New York in November 1982: Bergendal catalogue no.32; Stoneman, 'Guide', p.179; Homiletic and Pastoral Review, March 1995, pp.30-31 and 48-52.

Catalogue Note

text

This is a superbly preserved Romanesque Lectionary of the Use of Rome, with the Temporal from the Vigil of the Nativity, 24 December (fol.1v) to the twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost; followed by the Sanctoral (fol.94r); Common (fol.106r) and votive masses.