Western Manuscripts and Miniatures

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Lot 67
  • 67

Bible, in Latin, decorated manuscript on vellum [southern France or northern Spain, second quarter of the thirteenth century]

Estimate
8,000 - 12,000 GBP
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Description

  • Vellum
351 leaves, 163mm. by 112mm., wanting a leaf or two from the Hebrew names, else complete, collation: i14, ii15 (i probably a singleton), iii-ix16, x-xi14, xii-xv16, xvi14, xvii-xxi16, xxii14, xxiii10, double column, 50 lines in brown ink in a tiny early gothic bookhand, large red or blue initials (mainly 6-line) with contrasting penwork at beginning of each book, full-page initial 'I' (opening Genesis, fol.4r) in red and blue, enclosing God the Father holding the twin orbs of heaven and earth and trampling an ornamental dragon underfoot, some minor discolouration to first few leaves, else good condition, early sixteenth-century Spanish blind-stamped binding of brown leather over wooden boards (rebacked with spine laid on), blind tooled with rectangular panels filled with knotwork designs, remains of two clasps, fitted case

Provenance

provenance

1. Written and decorated in southern France or northern Spain in the second quarter of the thirteenth century, possibly for a student in either the University of Palencia (recognised in 1212), Salamanca (teaching from twelfth century, recognised in 1218) or one of the Dominican schools in Seville.

2. Matias Errázuriz: his nineteenth-century bookplate on pastedown.

3. Rolf Günther of Hamburg; his MS.7, with bookplate.

4. Bergendal MS.13; bought by Joseph Pope from Laurence Witten in August 1981: Bergendal catalogue 13; Stoneman, 'Guide', pp.170-71.

Catalogue Note

text

This volume contains the standard books of the Bible with their prologues as listed by Ker (MMBL, I, 96-7), with the exceptions listed in the Bergendal catalogue, followed by the Interpretation of Hebrew Names.

This manuscript dates to the first few decades after the final decisive push of the Muslim Almohad rulers out of the Iberian peninsula. The armies of Castile, Navarre, Aragon and Portugal united and defeated the Almohads at the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212. By 1252 only the Kingdom of Granada remained as a sovereign Muslim state.