Western Manuscripts S/O

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Lot 42
  • 42

Vitae sanctorum, the martyrdom of St. Stephen the Pope, in Latin, manuscript on vellum [Italy, c.1100]

Estimate
3,000 - 5,000 GBP
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Description

  • Vellum
a very large leaf, 486mm. by 325mm., two columns, 42 lines, in a clear and increasingly widely-spaced late Carolingian minuscule (littera minuscula praegothica textualis), recovered from use as a wrapper apparently in 1553, with central area darkened and upper and lower corners trimmed away with slight loss of text, creased in former folds with small holes, hessian binding

Provenance

provenance

H.P Kraus, list 189 (March 1958); sold in our rooms, 21 June 1994, part of lot 4; Schøyen MS 1852.

Catalogue Note

text

Part of chapter II of the life of Stephen, pope 254-57, martyred during the Valerian persecution (Bibl. Hag. Lat., p.1136, no.7845). As commonly happened in monastic scriptoria, the manuscript was evidently divided up among a number of scribes working simultaneously. By the time that the present scribe reached the foot of the recto, he began to realise that he had insufficient remaining text to join up with the subsequent scribe's stint beginning on the next leaf and evidently already started. The lines of text on the verso here are increasingly enlongated and stretched out to fill the space, and he is forced to conclude in mid-word "... christi corporis sacramenta por[tantem ...]".