Lot 48

Lectionary (the so-called Prayerbook of Elizabeth of York), in Latin, decorated manuscript on vellum [England (perhaps Westminster), second quarter of the thirteenth century]

Estimate

6,000 - 8,000 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

Vellum

21 leaves, 177mm. by 125mm., two leaves fifteenth-century replacements for apparently damaged originals, and once with a frontispiece from a twelfth-century manuscript inserted by J. Barrois into the volume (removed in 1915 and now Berlin, Print Room Inv.929), but textually complete, collation: i^{4 (all singletons, and incorporating fifteenth-century replacement leaves), ii^{8, iii^{4, iv^{5 (last probably a singleton), single column, 11 lines in black ink in two large gothic bookhands, capitals touched in red, rubrics in red,}}}}six large initials (four 2-line, one 4- and 5-line) in red with penwork flourishes, first leaf loose at top, some small stains and cockling throughout, Absolution on last page and small area of bas-de-page of fol.1r stained blue by use of reagent, loss to margin of fol.21 repaired with modern vellum, else good and presentable condition, dark blue ornamental morocco by Thompson of Paris (bound for J. Barrois), with gilt scrolls inlaid with red and white roses

Provenance

provenance

1. Most probably from the library of Westminster Abbey: mid sixteenth-century inscriptions at the beginning, middle and end of the text: "Westminster abbaye" on fols.1r and 21v, "westminster" between the lines on fol.11r.

2. Identified as having been used by Elizabeth of York (1465-1503), wife of King Henry VII, and "if the tradition ... is well founded, it was probably given to her by her mother, for the inscription on f.i indicates that it belonged to Queen Elizabeth Woodville at the time she was in sanctuary in Westminster Abbey". She was in sanctuary in the abbey twice: first in 1470 for the birth of her son, later one of the princes in the tower, and again in 1483 when power was seized by Richard III. Other early inscriptions or pentrials, including "Elizabeth dei gratia" on fol.1r, above "to my good friend Mortimer", identified as Sir John Mortimer (1450-1504) of Kyre.

3. Jean Baptiste Joseph Barrois (1784-1855), French deputy and book-collector.

4. Bertram, 4^th Earl of Ashburnham (1797-1878), acquired as part of the entire Barrois collection in 1849; his sale in our rooms, 12 June 1901, lot 379, £51 to Leighton (their catalogue of 1915, no.1901).

5. J.P.R. Lyell (1871-1946), solicitor, bibliophile and bibliographer, the bulk of whose medieval manuscripts are now in the Bodleian; bought 18 January 1942: his gilt bookplate; sold to Quaritch.

6. H.L. Bradfer Lawrence (1887-1965); his MS.15.

7. Bergendal MS.60; bought by Joseph Pope in our rooms, 6 December 1983, lot 65; Bergendal catalogue no.65; Stoneman, 'Guide', pp.189-90 ; Pope, ''The Library', p.159; P. Tudor-Craig, Richard III, 1973, cat.no.156; P.M. Giles, 'A Handlist of the Bradfer-Lawrence Manuscripts', Trans. Cambr, Bibl. Soc., 7, 1977, p.89, no.15; A.F. Sutton and L. Visser-Fuchs, 'A Most Benevolent Queen: Queen Elizabeth Woodville's Reputation, Her Piety and her Books', The Richardian 10, 1995, pp.231-2 and 242-3.

Catalogue Note

text

The text comprises four readings from the Old Testament for Holy Saturday and four similar readings for the Vigil of Pentecost following the Use of Sarum. It is unlikely that a missal or lectionary would join together readings for Holy Saturday with those for Pentecost Eve (and thus exclude the whole Easter season which should lie between them), and it may be that this was always an exceptional volume, surviving now in the form it was always intended to be, rather than a fragment of a larger liturgical book.