An Unrecognised Book of Hours Made for Philip the Good [II] - An Addendum

Bodleian Library, MS. Laud Misc. 751, back pastedown (detail)

Anne Korteweg kindly emailed me about my most recent post, and with her permission I am sharing her observations (slightly edited):

Another Leaf from the Buckland Missal

In a previous post I mentioned that I have an interest in manuscripts from the Throckmorton library. This interest dates from the late 1990s, when I catalogued the Bodleian Library's Buckland Missal (MS. Don. b. 5; description below), which they had owned, and included a selection of images of it on what was, at the time, a fairly early example of a considerable body of digitized manuscript images online. You may, without being aware of it, be familiar with the Missal's only remaining historiated initial: it depicts the blessing of salt and water, and is used on the homepage of Chadwyck Healey's Patrologia Latina:

The volume has had an interesting history, and its provenance can be traced in part from inscriptions added to the calendar, including the dedication of the church at Buckland, from which it takes its name:

'Dedicacio eccl(esi)e de Buc[la]nd'

The 13th-Century Bibles from Norwich

Almost exactly four years ago I posted a reference to an unidentified Bible from Norwich Cathedral, which I found in an 1899 auction catalogue:

In the process of making additions to the new edition of N.R. Ker's Medieval Libraries of Great Britain (about which there will be a future blogpost) I realised that "Clingham" (which I had not been able to identify, and does not appear to be a place-name), must be a mis-reading of "Elingham". Ellingham is about 15 miles south-east of Norwich:

Bodleian, MS. Auct. D. 4. 6, revisited

Exactly three years ago I wrote a blog post questioning the often-asserted link between Bodleian, MS. Auct. D. 4. 6 and Roger, abbot of Reading Abbey from 1156 to 1165.

My skepticism has now received support in a recent publication by Nigel Morgan:

"The litany not only contradicts the destination claimed for the book, but also its date. ... In the litany ... there is an erasure of the fourth saint following the three English martyrs Alban, Oswald, and Edmund. There is little doubt that the erasure is of ... Thomas of Canterbury. The litany text ... must therefore be after 1173, and the connection of the book at the time of its making with Abbot Roger and Reading must inevitably be completely abandoned. ... neither Abbot Roger nor his institution was its original destinee"

Nigel J. Morgan, English Monastic Litanies of the Saints after 1000, II: Pontefract–York, Henry Bradshaw Society, 120 (London, 2013), p.33.

The old image-link seems to be broken, but a large version of the image is available here.

Soranzo - Canonici - Sneyd

Today I learned that there will be an exhibition in Florence next year, at the Galleria dell'Accademia, called La fortuna dei Primitivi: Tesori d'arte dalle collezioni italiane fra Sette e Ottocento, dedicated to 18th- and 19th-century Italian collecting of "primitives".

It will include a section about Lord Ashburnham and another about Matteo Canonici. This reminds me of a manuscript that sold at Bonham's in London a year ago:

The foliation in the middle of the lower margin shows (not mentioned in the Bonham's catalogue) that it comes from the collection of Jacopo Soranzo (1686-1761):

The Post-Medieval Owners of "The Bohun Bible"

The literature on the "Bohun" Bible suggests that the parent volume was written perhaps for a nunnery, perhaps in East Anglia, and was perhaps volume III of a four-volume set of which volume I is now British Library, Royal MS. 1 E.iv.

The last leaf of the parent volume of the dispersed leaves, now Bodleian Library, MS. Lat. bib. b. 4, f. 46v (formerly f. 413v in the parent volume), is inscribed “Richardus Legh me possidet Anno Domini 1613” (the first four words are repeated below this, but are crossed through in both cases); this is presumably Richard Legh, b. 1549(?), of East Hall, High Legh, Cheshire, or Richard Legh, b. 1554, of West Hall, High Legh. Extensive genealogies of these families can be found here.

Relative locations of Lymme, High Legh, and Nether Tabley

Below the Legh inscription on the Bodleian leaf is:

"Ex libris Petri Leicester de Nether-Tabley: qui liber mihi Dono datur a Richardo Maria Dumvill de Limme Armigero, 27 die Martii, Anno Domini 1665.”

A Fragment formerly owned by Guilford and Phillipps, part I

As noted in a previous post, I spent some time this summer enquiring about medieval manuscripts in Los Angeles collections. As a result of making contact previously, few days ago Helena Vilar de Lemos sent me images of a leaf that recently entered Special Collections in the Library at Occidental College:

Two more MSS from the Bibliotheca Swaniana

Two manuscripts from the late 18th-century English "Bibliotheca Swaniana" of David Swan are in the Douce collection at the Bodleian:
(i) MS. Douce 89 (Theological pieces, England, early 13th century; see SC 21663)
and
(ii) MS. Douce 125 (Ps.-Boethius, De Geometria, England, late 10th century; see SC 21699). Swan's characteristic ink pagination is visible, for example, in this image:

Bodleian, MS. Auct. D. 4. 6

Bodleian, MS. Auct. D. 4. 6 is a 12th-century English Glossed Psalter, well known for its initial apparently naming the scribe/artist and patron: "Ioh(ann)es me fecit Rogerio".