Western Manuscripts and Miniatures

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Lot 52
  • 52

Gregory the Great, Liber Dialogi, and Pseudo-Jerome, Liber de admonitione, with a record for the purchase of church bells by the parisioners of 'Hesamsted', in Latin, decorated manuscript on vellum [England, first quarter of the thirteenth century]

Estimate
5,000 - 7,000 GBP
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Description

  • Vellum
67 leaves, 228mm. by 158mm., wanting a leaf after fol.45 (with loss of text from Book 4, chapter 15-18), else complete, collation: i-v8, vi5 (last cut away), vii8, viii6, ix-x4, double column, 40-41 lines in brown ink in a small and neat English gothic bookhand, rubrics in red, 2- or 3-line initials in red or blue (the larger touched in contrasting penwork), 6-line elongated initials in red and blue with ornate penwork tracery opening each text, dry-point sketches of a spade and a monk's torso pointing at text on fols.29v-30r, endleaves at back with numerous dry-point glosses, sixteenth-century English words "why so" in pen and the parishioner-list discussed below, strip cut in bas-de-page of fol.25 (now repaired), few small spots and stains at edges (with no affect to text or decoration), else excellent condition, modern red leather over wooden boards

Provenance

1. Perhaps from the medieval library of Reading Abbey (founded in 1121 by Henry I, who was buried there, and suppressed and destroyed in 1538): once bound up with Bergendal MS.95, the following lot here, and in the sixteenth century in the library of J. Reynoldes, a principal owner of manuscripts from that house (cf. A. Coates, English Medieval Books, 1999, esp. pp.138-46). There is a remarkable contemporary record on fol.66v of the names of 76 parishioners who gave contributions for the casting of bells for a church in Hesamsted: "hec sunt promissa ad tintunabulum de hesamsted" (doubtless East Hampsted, Berkshire), including Walter the cleric and Michael moledinarius (the miller) who each gave 2 pence, Nicholas Cod and Richard Bolt[on] who each gave 1 penny, and many others. In total they raised 10s.11½d.

2. Andrew Bostock of Wrexham, North Wales: his inscription dated 28 March 1707 on fol.26r, alongside Hugh Jones and Thomas Hughes. Robert Bostock's signature on fol.14v.

3. Bergendal MS.96; bought by Joseph Pope in our rooms, 19 June 1990, lot 86: Bergendal catalogue no.96; Stoneman, 'Guide', p.202.

Catalogue Note

text

The Liber Dialogi was composed by Gregory the Great (c.540-604) and constitutes a series of biographies of Italian saints (including St. Benedict), as well as one of our most important historical records of the sixth century. The text opens here on fol.1r. This is followed, on fol.58v, by the Liber de admonitione, a contemplative work addressed to an anchorite nun named Nonsuinda. It was ascribed in the Middle Ages to Jerome, but is more probably a tenth-century composition by a German bishop named Adalerus.