Manuscript on parchment roll, composed of 15 membranes, of a Chronicle of biblical world history and the genealogy of the kings of England.
Description:
Binding: Unbound., One large illuminated initial for the prologue, 8-line, mauve and blue with white filigree against gold ground thinly edged in black. The initial is filled with a large flower, red, yellow and green, and curling acanthus, orange and green extending into the margin and continued as black inkspray with large leaves, heart-shaped or acanthus, blue, pink, orange, white and green with white filigree, a large orange and gold flower, smaller leaves in gold with blue and pink, gold dots and small green leaves, extending into the upper and left margin to form a partial border. Smaller illuminated initial for the beginning of the main chronicle, 5-line, gold on blue and mauve ground with white filigree. Numerous small initials, 2-line, alternate in gold with blue penwork and blue with red. Paragraph marks alternate in red and blue., Purchased from C. A. Stonehill in 1959 by Thomas E. Marston., Script: Written by a single scribe in a somewhat rough textura., and The genealogical diagrams, which are fitted into the empty spaces between the columns of text, begin with a roundel formed of concentric bands of blue, gold and red with a miniature of Adam with Eve, who is being handed an apple by the serpent. From the roundel of Adam and Eve to the Ascension of Christ the successive Biblical names, framed in orange or green squares, are linked by a continuous band in blue, red and gold. The names of the ancestors of the Kings of England, starting with Brutus, appear in red or blue circles, surmounted by gold crowns. Other names are in plain red circles. Linking lines in the genealogies are in red or green. At the appropriate places in the text are inserted schematized diagrams in red and green ink of Noah's Ark, a plan of the Israelite camp in the desert and a plan of the city of Jerusalem.
Subject (Geographic):
Great Britain--History--1066-1687
Subject (Topic):
Bible--History of Biblical events, Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval, Kings and rulers--Genealogy, Manuscripts, Medieval--Connecticut--New Haven, Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in Beinecke Library, and World history--Early works to 1800
Manuscript on parchment (thick) of 1) List of relics in an unidentified church of St. James, probably in Spain. 2) Indulgences for various prayers, masses, etc. when visiting the church of St. James. 3) Unidentified Middle English devotional text. 4) Unidentified prayer, probably a form of absolution related to indulgences in art. 2. 5) Ps.-Augustine, Ps.-Bernard, etc., and wrongly attributed to Richard Rolle, Speculum peccatoris, ending imperfectly. 6) Richard Rolle, De emendatione vitae. 7) Richard Rolle, Oleum effusum (final four sections of the Comment on the Canticles). 8) John of Peckham, extract from Constitutiones. 9) The Five Wiles of the Pharaoh in Middle English.
Description:
Binding: Fifteenth century, England. Original, caught up sewing with very heavy thread on four tawed skin, slit straps laced from out to inside beech boards and pegged in channels which are filled with gesso (?). Green and gold, beaded endbands are sewn on cord cores laid in grooves in the outside of the boards. Spine lined with tawed skin. Covered in tawed skin, originally pink, with two fastenings, the catches on the lower board, the upper one cut in for brown leather straps. Spine covering disintegrating, thus exposing sewing. Covers much worm eaten., Flourished initials of good quality, 4- to 2-line, blue with red penwork designs incorporating leaf motifs and marginal extensions. Headings in red. Paragraph marks in blue., and Script: Articles 5-7 written by a single scribe in anglicana bookhand. Other texts by contemporary scribes in less careful bookhands, with article 4 in a less formal hand.
Subject (Name):
Rolle, Richard, of Hampole, 1290?-1349
Subject (Topic):
Christian literature, English (Middle), Christian literature, Latin (Medieval and modern), Christian pilgrims and pilgrimages., and Manuscripts, Medieval--Connecticut--New Haven
Manuscript on parchment of collected Greek moral sayings translated into Latin by the diplomat George Hermonymus of Sparta. The manuscript also contains a dedicatory preface to the Abbot of St. Albans. The final two leaves contain 16th and 17th-century verses in multiple hands. The humanist style of the book's script, contents, and illuminations suggest that it is a sister copy of British Library, Harley MS 3346, which was presented to George Neville, Archbishop of York.
Description:
Binding: original, worn velvet over wooden boards., Decoration: heraldic illumination on f. 1v of two angels holding a coat of arms, overpainted to that of the Totewhill family (sable, three covered cups argent); the mitre associated with the abbacy of St. Albans floats above. Borderwork around the miniature consists of gold leaf and alternating red and blue flowers. 1 four-line gilt initial "M" on 2r with accompanying blue and red design and gold borderwork with blue and red background. Between 1 and 3 two to three-line gilt initials per page with blue and red background. Rubrics in red., Ex libris St. Albans Abbey. Ex libris the Totewhill family of Cornwall. Purchased from Christie's London sale (2017 July 12, lot 13) on the James Marshall and Marie-Louise Osborn Fund, 2017., Layout: single column of 14 lines., Script: main text in a humanist hand, possibly that of George Hermonymus. Later English and Latin verses in three early modern hands., and The manuscript contains a dedicatory preface from George Hermonymus to "Gulielmum," the Abbot of St. Albans, either William Albon (1465-1475) or William of Wallingford (1476-1492); this manuscript was probably presented while Hermonymus was on a diplomatic mission to England between 1475 and 1476. The coat of arms of the Totewhill family of Cornwall have been overpainted in the heraldic miniature.
Subject (Name):
Albon, William,---1476., Hermōnymos, Geōrgios,--15th cent., St. Albans Abbey, and Wallingford, William,---1488?
Subject (Topic):
Classical philosophy, Manuscripts, Medieval--Connecticut--New Haven, and Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in Beinecke Library
Christian literature, English (Middle), Humility--Religious aspects--Christianity, Manuscripts, Medieval--Connecticut--New Haven, and Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in Beinecke Library
Portions of a grammar handbook, including parts of a nominalium and rhetorical works (23 pieces).
Description:
"The recovery of a fifteenth-century schoolmaster's book": Beinecke MS 3, no. 34, Voights and Shailor: Yale University Library Gazette, LX, (1985) pp. 11-31. and Paper (watermarks similar in design to Piccard Fabeltiere 1342-48), each fragment 158 x 100 mm. Long lines ruled in ink or (in lexicon) 2 columns, unruled. Written in Anglicana bookhand. Signature of an early owner on what appears to have been the paper flyleaf of the codex: "Johannes carter est verus possessor huius libri." Boards from a binding.