Bede, Commentary on Proverbs, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on vellum [England, second quarter of twelfth century]

Estimate

20,000 - 30,000 GBP

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Description

Vellum

56 leaves (plus 4 original endleaves at front), 223mm. by 150mm., wants a gathering or so from end (with chs.27-31 of text), else complete, collation: i-vii⁸, capitals touched in red, single column, rubrics in red, 2-line initials in red, blue or green touched with contrasting flourishes, 2 larger variegated initials in all three colours (fols.22v and 51v), with penwork flourishes, one large illuminated initial ‘P’ (fol.1r), 150mm. high, in pounced gold enclosing swirling gold foliage on blue and pale green grounds, some contemporary repairs to vellum and small spots, else excellent condition, marbled pastedowns, nineteenth-century tooled brown leather over pasteboards, boards slightly bowed at ends and leather splitting at head and base of spine

Provenance

provenance

(1) Written in the second quarter of twelfth century, most probably for an English monastic community.

(2) By the thirteenth century owned by Robert of Canterbury: his ex libris “Iste liber fuit fratris Roberti de cantuaria” on front endleaf. The book is not written by a known Canterbury scribe, and perhaps Robert is to be identified with the cleric and royal chaplain who is recorded in the Close Rolls of Henry III as receiving land in Wiggeford in 1233 (1905, p.243).

(3) Anthony Watson: his eighteenth- or nineteenth-century ex libris on front endleaf.

(4) From the library of the Barons Monson in Burton: their MS.CLXVII. Most probably acquired by William John Monson, 6th Baron Monson (1796-1862), and by descent.

Catalogue Note

text

The works of Bede (672/3-735), the Northumbrian monk and titan of Anglo-Saxon scholarship, captivated the readers of Early Medieval Europe, creating entire genres and inspiring many hundreds of other works. This commentary on Proverbs, or the Super Parabolas Salomonis as it is commonly named in manuscripts, has an especial place among them, as one of the very few of his works which demonstrably has a continuous presence in England from pre-Viking Age Northumbria (cf. Bodleian, MS.819, eighth century, and probably made in Wearmouth-Jarrow: CLA II, no.235) to the present day. There were copies in important Continental centres in the ninth century (that from Lorsch is now Vatican, BAV.Pal.284; and that from Reichenau is now Karlsruhe, Land. Bibl., Aug.255), and the text was well represented in English libraries in the twelfth century (that from Durham is now British Library, Harley MS.4688; Peterborough’s is Lambeth Palace MS.191; Bury St. Edmunds’ is Oxford, Balliol College MS.175; and Christ Church, Canterbury’s is Windsor, St. George’s Chapel MS.5).

The endleaves contain contemporary or near-contemporary additions of exhortational material, extracts from Peter Lombard on the Epistle to the Hebrews, and some Latin verses, opening “Amittit proscriptus opes nec posse reverti …”, also recorded in Bibliothèque municipale de Charleville-Mézières, ms.70 (a thirteenth-century Aurelius Augustinus), and ÖNB, Codex Vindobonensis, Lat.277 (a fourteenth-century compendium).