The Ferrell Roman de la Rose: a Budé, Bourré, and Pérussis Puzzle

After reading the blog post about a manuscript in Liège with the arms of Jean(?) Budé, Dominique Vanwijnsberghe kindly told me about a late 18th-century illuminated leaf, added to a late 14th-century manuscript in the Morgan Library, New York (MS G.32, of which there are images and a description online), which also has the Budé arms half-way down the right border.

Visiting me in London a few weeks later Dominique very kindly gave me a copy of his excellent book, “Moult bons et notables”: L’enluminure tournaisienne à l’époque de Robert Campin (1380–1430) (Leuven, 2007), in which the image below is fig.285.

New York, Morgan Library, MS G.32, fol.1r

Detail of right border

A Manuale from the Augustinian Convent of Sts James and Christopher, Steterburg (Lower Saxony)

Having discussed one of Occidental College's two medieval codices in a previous post, we can turn to the other: a fascinating German nuns' book – a manuale – whose origin can be deduced from its textual contents.

But before turning to its origin, what can we tell about its more recent provenance?

The Post-Medieval Provenance of the Taymouth Hours (BL, Yates Thompson MS. 13)

I have recently read and reviewed Kathryn A. Smith, The Taymouth Hours: Stories and the Construction of Self in Late Medieval England (The British Library: London, 2012).

I have often argued that the post-medieval and even modern provenance of medieval manuscripts can provide valuable clues to their medieval origins and owners, and the Taymouth Hours may be a case in point. I will consider the manuscript's provenance in two parts: here considering its post-medieval homes, working backwards from the present, and then its origin patron in a subsequent post.

The manuscript was bequeathed to the British Museum by the widow of Henry Yates Thompson in 1941. It had escaped being sold in the three Yates Thompson auctions of 1919-1921 because Yates Thompson had given it to her a few years earlier: in 1917 he inscribed its flyleaf as follows:

"This volume, one of the
choicest of my English MS.S.
I gave to my dear wife on her
birthday Jan[uar]y 10th 1917 to
mitigate her grief at the
news that I intended to sell
my collection of 100 illumi-
nated MSS.
                 [signed:] HYT."

The first flyleaf has Yates Thompson's bookplate annotated, as usual, with the acquisition details:

"57": the number of the MS in Thompson's collection,

"nee.e.e": the price he paid, using his price-code "bryanstole", i.e. "£500 0s. 0d."

"Earl of Ashburnham May 1897": the source and date of acquisition.

Guglielmo Libri Catalogues Online

Anyone not familiar with Count Guglielmo Bruto Icilio Timoleone Libri-Carucci dalla Sommaia (1802-1869) will have no trouble finding biographies online, including Wikipedia's. The title of his full-length biography gives a good indication of the reasons for his fame and notoriety: P. Alessandra Maccioni-Ruju and Marco Mostert, The Life and Times of Guglielmo Libri (1802-1869), Scientist, Patriot, Scholar, Journalist and Thief: A Nineteenth-Century Story (Hilversum, 1995).

The catalogue of the Libri Collection of the 4th Earl of Ashburnham is online: A Catalogue of the Manuscripts at Ashburnham Place: Comprising a Collection Formed by Professor Libri (London, [n.d.])

The auction Catalogue of the Extraordinary Collection of Splendid Manuscripts, Chiefly Upon Vellum, in Various Languages of Europe and the East, formed by M. Guglielmo Libri, the Eminent Collector, who is Obliged to Leave London in Consequence of Ill Health, and for that Reason to Dispose of his Literary Treasures ... which will be Sold by Leigh Sotheby & John Wilknson ... Monday, 28th of March, 1859, and Seven Following Days ... is available online in at least four different copies:

• a lighly annotated copy in the Taylor Institution, Oxford
• a copy in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich
• a second copy in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich
• a colour scan of the copy in the Institute of Medieval Studies, University of Toronto

Wikipedia: English book and MSS collectors

I have just noticed that Wikipedia has a category "English book and manuscript collectors".

Of course the entries are of variable quality, but that for Thomas Martin of Palgrave, for example, based on an out-of-copyright edition of the DNB,  is reasonably thorough and has a good bibliography.