Manuscript, on parchment, in a single hand, of a collection of prayers, principally in Middle English.
Description:
From the collection of Toshiyuki Takamiya, 2013-., Layout: single column., and Script: secretary script.
Subject (Topic):
Devotional literature, English (Middle), Devotional literature, English., Manuscripts, Medieval--Connecticut--New Haven., Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in Beinecke Library., Prayers, Medieval., and Prayers--Early works to 1800.
Manuscript, on vellum, in a single hand, of this unique English prose version of the twelfth-century Latin treatise Secretum secretorum, itself a translation of the Kitab sirr al-asrar. In addition to this text, the volume also includes a short astrological text (ff. 112-125) in Middle English, headed "secreta." The opening leaf is not present; the introduction by the translator praises Sir Miles Stapleton as his patron.
Alternative Title:
Secretum secretorum.
Description:
Binding: fifteenth-century blind-stamped calf over wooden boards; remains of clasps., Decoration: numerous initials in gold or in blue with contrasting penwork., Formerly owned by Richard Elde; John Harcourt; A. A. Judo?. Johannes de Caritate, Privite of Privyteis. From the collection of Toshiyuki Takamiya, 2013-., Layout: single columns of 21-23 lines., Numerous errors in pencil foliation., Script: English bookhand., and Several verses and aphorisms in a sixteenth?-century cursive hand on blank leaves and in margins.
Subject (Name):
Johannes,--de Caritate.
Subject (Topic):
Astrology--Early works to 1800., Astronomy, Medieval., Astronomy--Early works to 1800., Education of princes--Early works to 1800., English prose literature--Middle English, 1100-1500., Manuscripts, Medieval--Connecticut--New Haven., Medicine, Medieval., Medicine--Early works to 1800., Medicine--Formulae, receipts, prescriptions--Early works to 1800., and Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in Beinecke Library.
Manuscript, on parchment, in Gothic script, produced in Flanders during the fourth quarter of the thirteenth century.
Description:
Binding: dark brown calf skin over pasteboards (sixteenth or seventeenth century)., Decorations include a half-page initial on f. 43r (six other half-page initials have been cut from the manuscript) and illustrations of the labors of the months in the calendar., On the calendar page for December, St. Thomas of Canterbury's name has been erased from its place, indicating English ownership at least in the sixteenth century., and The back flyleaf has, in two fourteenth century hands, a French song "Une bon chanson ay troue" and a Middle English carol "Mayde and moder, glade thou be."
Manuscript, on parchment, in at least two hands, containing the text of the psalter, preceded by prayers and a calendar, and followed by canticles and a litany. The calendar is very detailed and includes dates of various English battles, the latest of which is the battle of Dunkirk (1483).
Description:
Binding: contemporary binding of reversed skin over bevelled wooden boards; sewn on five double bands. Remains of clasps on the front board., Decoration: Rubricated. Small initials throughout in red and blue with contrasting penwork; seven large illuminated initials with two-sided borders; large illuminated initial on the first leaf of the text of the Psalter., Formerly owned by Alan G. Thomas. From the collection of Toshiyuki Takamiya, 2013-., In Latin; a few notes in the calendar in Middle English., Layout: single columns of 21 lines., Note concerning the probable date of the volume in Latin, in a later hand (9v.), and Script: rounded gothic liturgical script.
Subject (Name):
Catholic Church--Liturgy., Catholic Church--Prayers and devotions., and Thomas, Alan G.--Ownership.
Subject (Topic):
Manuscripts, Medieval--Connecticut--New Haven., Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in Beinecke Library., Psalters., and Psalters--England--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 vellum, incomplete, in a single hand, of John Lydgate's and Benedict Burgh's Middle English verse translation of the twelfth-century Latin treatise Secretum Secretorum, itself a translation of the Kitab sirr al-asrar. In addition to this text, the volume also contains several prose pieces in Middle English and Latin, including one with illustrated diagrams and a Latin tract on the interpretation of dreams.
Description:
Binding: disbound, but with some original sewing intact; modern case., Decoration: 15 illuminated borders; other decorated initials, some gilt., From the collection of Toshiyuki Takamiya, 2013-., Layout: various single-column., Script: English bookhand., Several medical recipes added on blank leaves and portions of leaves in a sixteenth-century? cursive hand., and Signature of John Bonen? in a seventeenth-century hand. Signature of Thomas Bowen in a seventeenth-century hand.
Subject (Name):
Burgh, Benedict. and Lydgate, John, 1370?-1451?
Subject (Topic):
Astrology--Early works to 1800., Astronomy, Medieval., Astronomy--Early works to 1800., Education of princes--Early works to 1800., English prose literature--Middle English, 1100-1500., Manuscripts, Medieval--Connecticut--New Haven., Medicine, Medieval., Medicine--Early works to 1800., Medicine--Formulae, receipts, prescriptions--Early works to 1800., and Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in Beinecke Library.
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
In addition to the Speculum Christiani (ff. 64r-100v), the manuscript contains an unidentified Latin alphabetical preacher's manual (ff. 1r-62v), compiled for the purpose of composing sermons. It is incomplete at the beginning, starting with the entry Amor, and continues with 149 entries to Christi acensio (under X)., Manuscript on paper in Anglicana (Scribe 1, ff. 1-62v) and Secretary script (Scribe 2, 64r-100v), produced in England in the mid-fifteenth century., and Spine title: "MS Loci qm Theologi Ord: Alpho 80."
Description:
Binding: limp vellum., Headings and various names and phrases in the Speculum Christiani are rubricated., and Spiritual diagram on f. 85v: two ladders are drawn, one for "Celum," one for "Infernum." On the rungs are written the virtues and vices pertaining to each, eight for heaven and nine for hell. The uprights are inscribed Spes and Fides for heaven, and Superbia and Larga Conscientia for hell.
Subject (Name):
Wotton, Johannes
Subject (Topic):
Catholic Church--Spiritual life--Early works to 1800, Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in Beinecke Library, Preaching--Early works to 1800, and Preaching--History--Middle Ages, 600-1500
Manuscript, on vellum, in a single hand, of a version of this fourteenth-century pastoral manual. The text is in eight sections, or Tabulae, in Latin, with extensive passages in Middle English prose and interpolated Middle English verse.
Description:
Binding: nineteenth-century morocco., Decoration: red and blue initials with contrasting penwork., Ex libris Alfred Henry Huth; Sir Leicester Harmsworth; William and Christina Foyle. From the collection of Toshiyuki Takamiya., Layout: single columns of 32 lines., and Script: written in an English bookhand.
Subject (Name):
Catholic Church--Clergy--Early works to 1800., Catholic Church--Handbooks, manuals, etc., Foyle, William Alfred,--1885---Bookplate., Harmsworth, R. Leicester--(Robert Leicester),--Sir,--1870-1937--Ownership., and Huth, Alfred Henry,--1850-1910--Bookplate.
Subject (Topic):
Christian life--Early works to 1800., English poetry--Middle English, 1100-1500., English prose literature--Middle English, 1100-1500., Manuscripts, Medieval--Connecticut--New Haven., and Medieval and Renaissance Ma
Manuscript, on vellum and paper, in several hands, containing a collection of texts in Latin and Middle English. Almost two-thirds of the volume consists of a collection of Latin sermons, followed by a Latin verse text, Stimulus compassionis. Middle English texts include The three kings of Cologne, a devotional work in prose; Prester John, a travel narrative; John Lydgate's Middle English poem Stans puer ad mensam; and the Middle English verses The myrour of mankind and The treatise of a gallant.
Description:
Binding: early eighteenth-century sheep over pasteboards. Nineteenth-century green morocco case with spine title: Ancient English Poetry M. S., Bookseller's description tipped in at front of volume., Decoration: numerous initials in blue with red penwork., Formerly owned by Gregory Lewis Way; William Waldorf Astor. From the collection of Toshiyuki Takamiya, 2013-., Layout: single columns of 26-31 lines., Most of the volume is parchment; 15 leaves toward the end of the volume are paper., Script: several English cursive bookhands., and Spine title in gilt: M. S. Vellum.
Subject (Name):
Lydgate, John,--1370?-1451? and Prester John--(Legendary character)
Subject (Topic):
Conduct of life--Early works to 1800., Devotional literature, English (Middle), English literature--Middle English, 1100-1500., English poetry--Middle English, 1100-1500., English prose literature--Middle English, 1100-1500., and Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in Beinecke Library.